F1 FP1 Brazilian GP 2024 – With three Brits in the top three, Lando Norris, George Russell and Oliver Bearman top the timings in Brazil.
As this weekend is a sprint weekend, we head into the weekend’s only practice session before the competitive sessions start.
Bearman Returns
Oliver Bearman replaces Kevin Magnussen for Haas in this practice session, as well as for Sprint Qualifying and Saturday’s Sprint Race after it was announced Magnussen is unwell.
It will be announced in due course if Magnussen is well enough to complete Qualifying and the race on Sunday.
The 19-year-old British driver will become a full-time driver for the team in 2025, with Bearman also racing for the team in Azerbaijan this year after Magnussen’s race ban.
The First Ten Minutes
Bearman was one of the first drivers to make his way onto the resurfaced track.
The rest of the grid were eager to follow, with the newly laid track likely to add a degree of uncertainty this weekend.
Oscar Piastri was quick to top the timings with a 1:13.200 for McLaren, with teammate Lando Norris replacing him with a 1:12.641.
George Russell followed, topping the timings with a 1:12.276 for Mercedes.
Sergio Perez is testing a new chassis after the Mexican Grand Prix, insisting that he was not satisfied with its performance last weekend after placing 17th at his home race.
Notably, the driver appeared to hit the ground running, topping the timings with a 1:12.009 for Red Bull.
Verstappen’s Misery
Max Verstappen tops the timings with a 1:11.712 for Red Bull.
However, the Dutch driver will take a 5-place grid penalty for the race on Sunday for taking an engine change.
As this engine change will be outside the annual allowance, an automatic five place grid penalty will be triggered.
Russell followed, setting a 1:11.806 for Mercedes.
In The Pits
With just over half of the session to go, most of the drivers took to the pits to make any necessary changes and review the data.
Norris makes it clear that the resurfaced track “doesn’t feel very smooth- I’ll tell you that”, with the driver watching onboards from Verstappen’s laps.
Work was also underway on Piastri’s car, with the crew working on the front suspension.
With Half An Hour To Go…
Lewis Hamilton went to second with a 1:11.54, half a second behind Verstappen.
The Brit complained that the “ride quality is still bad”, clearly unhappy with the Mercedes.
With many of the drivers conducting high-fuel runs, the times across the board were not improving.
Grip levels seemed to be reasonably satisfactory, with lap times appearing similar to last year.
With 22 minutes of the session remaining, Russell was the first non-RB driver to emerge from the pits on a soft tyre. He quickly topped the timings with a 1:10.791.
Soft Tyre Runs
With ten minutes of the session left, the drivers began their runs on the soft compound tyres.
Franco Colapinto went second behind Russell with a 1:11.619 for Williams.
Bearman immediately replaced him with a 1:10.805, going quicker than both Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz on their soft tyre runs.
Norris went third with a 1:10.831, with the championship contender also not being able to beat Bearman’s time.
With just over a minute of the session remaining, Piastri went +0.159s behind his teammate in fourth position.
With Verstappen set to go fastest but aborting his attempt, Norris tops the timings at the end of the session with a 1:10.610 for McLaren. George Russell finished in second with a 1:10.791 for Mercedes, with Oliver Bearman finalising the top three with a 1:10.805 for Haas.
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F1 FP1 Brazilian GP 2024