George Russell, meanwhile, ran fourth in the Mercedes W13 – which this weekend debuts a revised cooling duct – as track temperatures hit 60C. Lewis Hamilton’s seven-time champion team-mate, however, watched the session alongside team boss Toto Wolff from the pit garage to make way for F1 rookie Nick de Vries. Verstappen comfortably set the pace during the first round of fast laps, with the Red Bull driver sitting half a second clear of his team-mate thanks to a benchmark effort of 1m34.991s. It was Sainz who drove Robert Kubica, replacing Valtteri Bottas at Alfa Romeo, and Zhou Guanyu on track with the Ferrari driver initially setting a lap of 1m39.577s. But that was quickly demolished by Kevin Magnussen and then Lando Norris, who posted a 1m37.604s despite complaining of a spongy throttle pedal. Leclerc improved to 1m37.420s before Verstappen, maintaining his practical form in 2022, wowed the bankers at his first attempt as he ran 1m35.727s to find 1.6s over the Ferrari. Perez made up 0.4s, both RB18s wearing a pair of red-wall C4 soft tyres, while the refreshed McLaren MCL36 enjoyed a 3-4 run – Daniel Ricciardo ahead of Norris. Verstappen then lapped his 1m34.991s to end the initial gambit at the top, initially taking 1.1s out of Perez to allow an improving Leclerc to quickly split the Red Bull pair. Leclerc, who sits 38 points clear of Verstappen, was immediately relegated by Perez, the Monaco GP winner who responded to the Scuderia’s threat by closing to within 0.5s of his stablemate. But the Mexican would soon suffer a high-speed spin at Turn 3 when he collected too much inside the curb to shake the car, locking up all four tires as he slowed to narrowly miss the wall. After a mid-session lull, with 30 minutes to run, Verstappen emerged with a shiny new set of soft Pirellis to drop times to 1m34.346s thanks to a particularly strong first sector. But Ferrari soon found an answer as Sainz hit the line in 1m34.268s to find eight centimeters on Red Bull’s rival, the F1-75 doing the heavy lifting in the final sector. Verstappen responded with 21 minutes to go, setting a time of 1m34.021s, but left time on the table by running wide over the exit curb of Turn 12 after understeer at the turn-in. The Dutch ace would also experience slow gear changes, although this appeared to be linked to hitting the curbs from Turn 8-9. Those brief moments left the door ajar for Leclerc to nail a 1mm33.930s – the only driver to lap under 1m34s. With the drivers stuck to the now wiped Pirellis for the rest of the hour, the Monegasque maintained his 0.09s advantage over Verstappen to claim early bragging rights. Sainz finished 0.3s behind his pace team-mate and will now face at least a 10-place penalty after picking up his third electronics control package of the season. Exceeding the limit of two as a legacy of the disastrous Austrian GP engine fire like Leclerc in Montreal, another blow could come if Ferrari changes more engine components as the event winds down. Russell, meanwhile, was better than the rest in fourth place. The Brit ran 0.9s with the W13 mainly lifting its inside wheel as a result of the harsh anti-seal setup. Pierre Gasly used the first major upgrade of the campaign for the AlphaTauri, running fifth and beating Perez. It continued to be a messy session for the Mexican, who straightened at the chicane and had to stop briefly in the Red Bull garage after his visor tear caught in the right rear suspension. The RB18 also sports modifications for Paul Ricard, thanks to a revised floor – with Adrian Newey getting on his hands and knees to slowly inspect Verstappen’s bargeboard. Norris ran the custom McLaren (notable for its new sidepods) to seventh ahead of Alex Albon’s Williams, while Formula 2 and Formula E champion de Vries finished ninth – having run too early to risk damage to the floor. Ricciardo completed the top 10 ahead of Zhou, Lance Stroll, Esteban Ocon and Sebastian Vettel. Behind Fernando Alonso in 15th, points scorer Mick Schumacher led Haas stablemate Magnussen as Tsunoda, Kubica and Nicholas Latifi rounded out the series.
