F1: Perez tops opening practice for Sao Paulo GP

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez turned a lap of 1m11.853s to top Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by just 0.004s and his Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen by just 0.008s.

Carlos Sainz was a close 4th, 0.186s back and just 0.001s ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s #44 Mercedes.

Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate was 6th, 0.202s behind.

So it is the Red Bull man who finishes P1, despite being the first driver to bolt on the softs and running in arguably the least effective conditions. Interesting times going into qualifying, with very, very little in at the top.

With only one hour of running, qualifying is an unknown quantity, which makes it absolutely fascinating. Red Bull looked good both on track and on paper, if you didn’t listen to Verstappen’s radio messages, the Dutchman anything but happy out there with the handling of his RB18.

Ferrari looked good when they came out late on – but one piece of news that broke was that Sainz will be facing a 5-place grid drop for Sunday’s race after taking a new ICE for the weekend.

Up next is qualifying that will set the grid for tomorrow’s Sprint race.

Practice 1 Results