Verstappen leads first Qatar GP practice

Max Verstappen led the way in Formula 1’s inrush at Qatar’s Losail International Circuit, while Lewis Hamilton endured trouble with a damaged car and a lack of power.

The title leader looked well-appointed virtually the sandy track on his way to the fastest time, a 1m23.723s, to write-up AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly by 0.437s, the Frenchman rising through the order with a late lap on softs.

Mercedes followed in third and fourth, with Valtteri Bottas 0.471s roaming and Lewis Hamilton a remoter 0.351s off the pace.

It was an imperfect opening session for Mercedes and Hamilton in particular. It started promisingly enough, with the Briton on track to set a increasingly competitive time on an older run surpassing withdrawing the lap late having suffered a snap of oversteer in the final sector, but car problems then hampered him in the second half of the hour.

Hamilton complained early that he felt his car was “massively lanugo on power” — both cars were overdue Red Bull Racing in the power-sensitive first and third sectors, though Mercedes wouldn’t personize if Hamilton was running an old engine — and was forced to misfire a run late in the session with a car issue, though he was worldly-wise to return to the track in the final five minutes.

But the late-afternoon timing of first practice isn’t representative of qualifying and the race, run without dark. Track temperatures during night-time second practice later today are expected to be potation than the 108 degrees F registered in FP1, negating the seriousness of any problems in the opening hour.

Yuki Tsunoda ended the hour fifth for AlphaTauri superiority of Ferrari teammates Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, with Sergio Perez eighth in the second Red Bull Racing car, 1.2s off the pace.

Esteban Ocon led the way for Alpine in ninth superiority of McLaren duo Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian radioed his team clearance of the new-to-F1 Losail layout, but his British teammate suffered a increasingly difficult hour, triggering an unveiled sensor fault running over the warlike curbs in the penultimate turn that necessitated time serving to his garage.

Sebastian Vettel was 12th superiority of Nicholas Latifi, and Alfa Romeo teammates Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen were closely matched at 2s off the pace in 14th and 15th.

George Russell ended the hour 16th superiority of Fernando Alonso, who picked up forfeiture to his car on the curbs through the penultimate corner.

Haas suburbanite Mick Schumacher was 18th despite a late trip through the gravel at Turn 7. Lance Stroll followed in 19th, but the Canadian ended FP1 with only 11 laps to his name without suffering a brake-by-wire problem. Nikita Mazepin completed the order in 20th.