Norris dominates, Ferrari show pace, but Red Bull and Verstappen struggle

As it happened

The clock had not yet begun to tick down in FP1 and already the cars were lined up on the pitlane eager to get out on track. With there just being a single practice session this weekend and with the teams and drivers still trying to understand their 2025 cars it was only natural that they tried to maximise the single hour of practice allocated for the race weekend in China before the sprint portion of the weekend.

The track was still green at the start of the session, with Alex Albon and Liam Lawson going off track and into the gravel in Sector one. The Thai driver went off at turn one after having to perform a minor direction change to the outside to avoid a slow Haas at the long right hander of Turn 1. The Red Bull Racing driver did the same maneuver to avoid a low Aston Martin, but the lack of grip affected him into turn 3, causing him to go into the gravel on the outside of Turn 3.

George Russell topped the timesheets as the clock counted down on the first ten minutes of action, with Oscar Piastri, Isack Hadjar and Max Verstappen rounding off the top four.

However, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly beat them all to take P1, but only momentarily, as Max Verstappen charged to the very top, with both Ferrari’s following the Dutchman closely.

Lando Norris would put his MCL39’s pace on display beating Verstappen’s time by almost 6 tenths, with a 1:33.362. Russell used his W16’s to move up to his McLaren rival to within 80 one thousandths of a second in P2.

Piastri then pipped Norris by 26 one thousandths of a second  to take P1 and make it a papaya 1-2, as Lewis Hamilton, then P6, suffered from the general low grip levels at the track losing the front of his car as he made his way into the hairpin at Turn 14. However, the seven-time world champion also showed strong pace early on, taking the record in Sector 1, and improving on his sectors 1 and 2 to overthrow the McLaren’s with a 1:33.2. It would not be for long, as former teammate, and current Mercedes leader, Russell edged him out by two tenths, getting ever-close to the dipping below the 1:33’s, with a 1:33.017. 

When Piastri was asked by his engineer about how the MCL39 was performing, the Australian quickly replied that it was nervous on the high speeds, where there is plenty of time to gain, or in the worse case, lose with around the Shanghai International circuit. 

Fernando Alonso showed the AMR25 may be a contender for a good points haul at the top of the midfield with the Asturian driver putting in a lap good enough for P6.

Norris and Gasly, like Hamilton also suffered from a lack of grip at the front making their way around the hairpin at Turn 14 as they couldn’t keep their cars on track. As the first 20 minutes of the session went by it was Leclerc at the lead, being the first to breach the 1:33’s threshold, with a 1:32.8, with Russell and Hamilton rounding off the top 3.

Russell then set the pace in Sector 1, and although his Sector 2 was down on his previous time, he completed a very strong lap setting the record also in Sector 3, beating the Monegasque’s time by half a second with a 1:32.3. The entire field had yet to don a hard or soft compound, so it was C3 compounds for all. Mercedes’ Antonelli then edged in his name in top four behind teammate Russell, Leclerc and Hamilton as the session reached its equator. 

Yuki Tsunoda broke into the top 10 over a second adrift from the pace set by the leader, Russell. Liam Lawson was still a long way away from teammate Max Verstappen as the Dutchman’s time was only good enough for P5, nearly a second off of Russell’s best lap, with the New Zealander down in P17 almost a full second behind his teammate.

It was then long-run time for Red Bull Racing driver, and incumbent world champion, as he struggled with grip at Turn 1, the long right hander.

Ferrari were running down on power, as Mercedes built a gap on the Italian team of half a second down the straights, yielding the FP1 times not representative. 

Gasly then reached out to his team to let them know of a software issue with his steering wheel as all the buttons did not correspond to their functions on the dashboard.As Hamilton again went off at the hairpin at Turn 14. However it was Norris who nearly ended up losing the backend of his MCL39 as he headed into turn 1 suffering a big snap on entry that he had to pull a couple of tricks out of the bag to keep the car out of the wall. The Briton would also lose the rear on the exit of Turn 6.

When told by his engineer that a snap had been due to the wind, Alonso quipped that it was the same for everybody, “the wind is not following us.”

Communication issues would continue at Ferrari with Hamilton’s engineer providing the seven-time world champion with information on the wind, to which Hamilton then replied that those “were two different messages.”

Leclerc and Piastri would move closer to Russell with the Monegasque being almost three tenths and a half adrift of the Briton and the Australian nearly half a second from the Mercedes leader.

Leclerc then had a spin as he went into Turn 2 following the long right hander, as the rear axle became unloaded, a general characteristic of that part of the track, which may mean that the Monegasque was carrying a little too much speed going into the second part of that sequence of corners.

Antonelli then messaged back to Mercedes that he was blistering the front left. However, he was assured by the team that it was the case with other drivers and teams as well. The Shanghai International circuit is notorious for punishing the left front tyres.

2007 flashback for Hamilton, as the new Ferrari driver mimicked his off that saw him lose a golden opportunity to win the Drivers’ title as a rookie as he went straight on in the pitlane. Luckily there’s no gravel there at the moment, otherwise the outcome would have been the same, albeit with much lighter consequences.

Antonelli did no favors for his front left as the Italian locked up going into the pitlane. As the session entered the last 10 minutes of action, Doohan’s A525 caused a red flag as he reported hydraulics and electronics issues, losing power steering and the car switching off. Fortunately for the teams the Australian rookie was able to park his car near a track exit, which sped up the marshalls efforts to extricate the broken car from the circuit to get the session resumed as soon as possible.

As the session resumed all teams sent their drivers out on C4 compounds to try and get at least one verifiable read into their one lap pace on the Soft tyres.

Russell was unable to improve on his Sector 1, as Leclerc managed to set the pace there, but that was before Lando Norris took the record there. 

Russell was unable to beat his previous lap, but Leclerc set the pace with a 1:32.1, followed by Lewis Hamilton, but both were then demoted to P2 and P3 respectively by McLaren rival, Norris, who stormed to the top half a second clear of the Ferrari pair. Piastri then edged out Hamilton, to take P3. Max Verstappen having lost three tenths in Sector 1 to Norris bolted to the pits aborting his lap, as he was far off the leaders’ pace. Alex Albon went up to P6 while his teammate, Carlos Sainz ended the session in P13.