Aston Martin brought their long-awaited raft of updates after a torrid season so far while Racing Bulls have a new airbox intake which appears significantly wider and almost square and McLaren brought a new rear wing to test. Five reserve drivers had the opportunity to get in some valuable mileage and experience in a Formula One car for the first practice session - Leonardo Fornaroli replaced Oscar Piastri at McLaren, Ryo Hirakawa took Oliver Bearman's seat at Haas, Colton Herta in Valtteri Bottas' Cadillac, Frederik Vesti taking Kimi Antonelli's place at Mercedes and Paul Aron replacing Franco Colapinto at Alpine.
With a dirty track, early running in the first practice saw quite a few slides and lockups, with Lewis Hamilton, Leonardo Fornaroli and Paul Aron all making massive catches through the final corner, while many were caught out with the bump under braking for turn 1, Alex Albon, George Russell and Carlos Sainz all having big lockups, Sainz locking all four wheels as he ran very deep.
A red flag was caused to recover the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll after he had come to a halt with his left rear wheel awry following suspension failure pitching him into a spin into turn 2. Charles Leclerc limped his Ferrari into pits later on, causing an early end to his session with what sounded like a gearbox failure.
Free Practice 1:
1: Leclerc
2: Verstappen
3: Hamilton
4: Hadjar
5: Russell
6: Bortoleto
7: Vesti
8: Hulkenberg
9: Lindblad
10: Lawson
11: Norris
12: Ocon
13: Alonso
14: Gasly
15: Albon
16: Fornaroli
17: Hirakawa
18: Perez
19: Aron
20: Herta
21: Stroll
22: Sainz
As the second practice session got underway, the second Aston Martin of Lance Stroll was still up on it's stands and looked like it wouldn't make it into the session following what was confirmed as a suspension failure. The early pace was once again set by the Ferraris, with Lewis Hamilton taking the top spot from Charles Leclerc. The track had cleaned up somewhat from earlier, but the wind had picked up and gusts caught a few people out.
Almost halfway through the session we saw the second red flag of the day, when Franco Colapinto lost the back end of his Alpine in the final corner, sending him into the barriers. With several drivers, including Kimi Antonelli, on a qualifying simulation, they had to bail out of their flying laps and return to the pits.
With the session resuming, Antonelli lost the back end of his Mercedes on his second attempt at setting a qualifying simulation lap, forcing him to bail out of the lap. The Ferraris once again set the pace, with Leclerc and Hamilton trading places at the top. Antonelli's torrid session continued with a big lockup having not set a representative time on the softs.
The remainder of the session was dedicated to race simulations, with no real improvements but a lot of close action proving that the new regulation cars can follow a lot closer. Lewis Hamilton ended the session on top from Charles Leclerc.
1: Hamilton
2: Leclerc
3: Norris
4: Verstappen
5: Russell
6: Hadjar
7: Lawson
8: Piastri
9: Hulkenberg
10: Lindblad
11: Bortoleto
12: Ocon
13: Antonelli
14: Gasly
15: Bearman
16: Albon
17: Sainz
18: Bottas
19: Alonso
20: Perez
21: Colapinto
22: Stroll