Hamilton leads Ferrari 1-2 in opening practice

Lewis Hamilton led a Ferrari 1-2 in the Italian Grand Prix’s opening practice session of the weekend, leading Formula 1 team-mate Charles Leclerc by 0.169s in the timesheets.

Hamilton fired in a 1m20.117s in the final five minutes of the session to overturn Leclerc’s line-leading time, as the Monegasque had found over 0.4s over early leader Max Verstappen.

The session had been earlier interrupted by a red flag with 25 minutes remaining, as Zandvoort podium finisher Isack Hadjar dredged up gravel from the Variante Ascari onto the circuit after dipping a wheel through the middle turn.

This came amid early soft-tyre runs, as Verstappen opened his account with a 1m20.692s on the red-walled tyre – but reported that he had no grip after failing to improve on his medium-tyre first sector.

Lando Norris bailed on soft-tyre laps twice as his McLaren looked difficult to handle in the early stages of practice, as it looked initially difficult to dig improvements over a lap on the softs.

Leclerc did improve following the red flag; he had earlier breathed a sigh of relief as a red flag incident was waved off, when he passed a Sauber on the exit of Curva Grande as the red flag appeared. Leclerc contended that he braked as hard as he could but was unable to slow enough to stay behind – the stewards chose not to pursue the incident any further.

Hamilton then overturned his time as the soft-tyre hot laps came to an end, and any chances for late improvements were nixed when George Russell’s Mercedes came to a stop on the exit of Curva Grande after losing power and getting stuck in seventh gear.

Carlos Sainz put himself between the Ferraris and Verstappen, as Andrea Kimi Antonelli was fifth ahead of Norris. Alex Albon did not set a time on softs, but was seventh ahead of the stranded Russell, Fernando Alonso, and Hadjar to complete the top 10.

Alex Dunne replaced championship leader Oscar Piastri and was 16th by the close of the session, while Paul Aron stepped into Franco Colapinto’s Alpine.

The Estonian suffered a spin at the Variante della Roggia, and was last in the overall times, a tenth behind Oliver Bearman.

F1 Italian GP – FP1 results