George Russell was fastest in the first practice session for the Miami Grand Prix after going three tenths faster than his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton. The two Mercedes drivers topped the times on the soft tyres with Hamilton a tenth faster than Charles Leclerc.
Russell had missed most of the first half of the session because of a steering issue caused by a heavy ‘development item’ that needed removing. Max Verstappen was fourth, a tenth behind Leclerc that allowed him to split the two Ferrari’s with Carlos Sainz over a tenth and a half off.
Verstappen had set the pace for much of the session before the Mercedes went faster on their soft run. Mercedes go into this weekend knowing that it is a going to be a difficult challenge to beat Red Bull this weekend, but they did their soft tyre runs later in the session to move ahead of Leclerc in the final minutes of the session.
But both Verstappen and Leclerc, were one of several drivers to run wide at various points. Pierre Gasly was sixth the Alpine driver recovering from a big moment to go a tenth and a half faster than the two Aston Martin’s. as drivers improved through the session lap times started to fall.
However the new track surface appeared to catch several drivers out mainly at Turn One and Eleven as the drivers struggled for grip. Fernando Alonso couldn’t continue to show Aston Martin’s strong start to the season however its only practice, but he was just over a tenth ahead of his teammate Lance Stroll.
Nico Hulkenberg was ninth putting his Haas a tenth and a half ahead of Esteban Ocon. Both having their moments, Hulkenberg having to catch a big moment through Turn Four and Five. Sergio Perez struggled to match the pace of his teammate Verstappen down in eleventh nearly a second off down in eleventh.
Hulkenberg couldn’t initially go faster than Ocon, before getting caught out at Turn Three when he lost the rear of his car, spinning around and slamming the right side against the wall and sending debris across the track. As Hulkenberg’s car needed recovering with its right-front wheel smashed, the session was stopped for eight minutes.
Ocon was just over two hundredthds faster than his former teammate Sergio Perez. McLaren couldn’t look to continue to show the teams progress, but were in the tight mid pack, Oscar Piastri twelefth going ahead of Kevin Magnussen by five hundredths of a second.
Valtteri Bottas was fourteenth ahead of Alex Albon by just a thousandth of a second. Lando Norris was sixteenth, ahead off Guanyu Zhou and Yuki Tsunoda Logan Sargeant had to settle for nineteenth in the opening session of his first home race, seven tenths of a second off the pace of his Williams’ team-mate Albon.
Nyck De Vries rounded out the field more than two seconds behind Sargeant.
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