F1 Saudi Arabian GP: Max Verstappen leads Red Bull one-two in opening practice
The double world champion, whose delayed arrival in Jeddah meant he skipped Thursday’s media du🧔ties after battling a stomach bug this week, was 0.483s faster than Red Bull teammate Sergio Per♌ez.
Having dominated F1 2023’s season-opening Bahra💜in Grand Prix a fortnight ago, Verstappe🔴n and Red Bull made an ominous start to the weekend around the high-speed Jeddah track.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was best of the rest in third, 0.698s adrift of🍒 Verstappen’s FP1 benchmark and a couple of tenths faster than teammate Lance Stroll.
George Russell pipped tea💯mmate Lewis ꦐHamilton by just 0.016s in fifth but both Mercedes drivers wound up over a second off the pace.
Carlos Sainz was seventh-quickest for Ferrari, ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, Williams’ Alex Albon and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, who completed the top-10 ord🦹er.
Charles Leclerc, who is carrying a 10-place grid penalty into the weekend for power unit changes, was only 11th, while McLaren’s Lando Norris was slowest ofꦫ all in 20th.
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