F1 Grand Prix practice results: Hamilton fastest in Saudi Arabia

Hamilton beat his title rival Max Verstappen of Red Bull in FP1 by 0.056s and was then 0.061s ahead of Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas under the floodlights in FP2.

Saudi Arabian Grand Prix FP1 results: Hamilton fastest from Verstappen

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	21	1'29.786			247.548
2	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	23	1'29.842	0.056	0.056	247.394
3	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	24	1'30.009	0.223	0.167	246.935
4	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	28	1'30.263	0.477	0.254	246.240
5	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	27	1'30.318	0.532	0.055	246.090
6	Carlos Sainz Jr	Ferrari	26	1'30.564	0.778	0.246	245.422
7	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	26	1'30.600	0.814	0.036	245.324
8	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	25	1'30.608	0.822	0.008	245.302
9	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	27	1'30.842	1.056	0.234	244.670
10	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	25	1'30.886	1.100	0.044	244.552
11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	27	1'30.960	1.174	0.074	244.353
12	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	29	1'31.023	1.237	0.063	244.184
13	Lando Norris	McLaren	23	1'31.029	1.243	0.006	244.168
14	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	25	1'31.044	1.258	0.015	244.128
15	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	26	1'31.099	1.313	0.055	243.980
16	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	26	1'31.296	1.510	0.197	243.454
17	George Russell	Williams	28	1'31.343	1.557	0.047	243.328
18	Mick Schumacher	Haas	24	1'31.525	1.739	0.182	242.845
19	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	27	1'31.821	2.035	0.296	242.062
20	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	23	1'33.464	3.678	1.643	237.807
View full results

What happened in Free Practice 1?

First practice in Qatar took place in daytime, meaning it was not fully representative of either qualifying or the race, both of which will occur in cooler conditions at night.

Verstappen spent the early part of FP1 on the hard compound tyre, setting the early pace at 1m30.920s – over half a second up on Hamilton who started on the softs. Verstappen improved his time to 1m30.014s after 25 minutes.

Mercedes ran again on softs with 20 minutes remaining, with Bottas jumping to the top on 1m30.009s, pipping Verstappen’s hard-tyred time by 0.005s.

As track conditions improved towards then end, Hamilton then unleashed a lap of 1m29.786s – gaining most of his time in the middle sector of the track. Verstappen didn’t improve his time on his first run on softs and suffered a big moment on the kerbs at Turn 23.

After a spat with Esteban Ocon at Turn 1, Verstappen recovered his composure to go second fastest on 1m29.842s, 0.056s slower than Hamilton – although he did set the fastest first sector time overall.

Bottas stayed third, ahead of Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri), an impressive Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) and Carlos Sainz (Ferrari).

Saudi Arabian Grand Prix FP2 results: Hamilton fastest from Bottas

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	22	1'29.018			249.684
2	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	23	1'29.079	0.061	0.061	249.513
3	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	22	1'29.099	0.081	0.020	249.457
4	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	20	1'29.213	0.195	0.114	249.138
5	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	21	1'29.441	0.423	0.228	248.503
6	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	22	1'29.555	0.537	0.114	248.187
7	Carlos Sainz Jr	Ferrari	24	1'29.589	0.571	0.034	248.092
8	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	20	1'29.597	0.579	0.008	248.070
9	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	22	1'29.768	0.750	0.171	247.598
10	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	23	1'29.772	0.754	0.004	247.587
11	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	22	1'29.968	0.950	0.196	247.047
12	Lando Norris	McLaren	19	1'30.004	0.986	0.036	246.949
13	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	23	1'30.110	1.092	0.106	246.658
14	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	24	1'30.276	1.258	0.166	246.204
15	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	22	1'30.442	1.424	0.166	245.753
16	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	22	1'30.502	1.484	0.060	245.590
17	George Russell	Williams	24	1'30.506	1.488	0.004	245.579
18	Mick Schumacher	Haas	20	1'30.652	1.634	0.146	245.183
19	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	23	1'31.039	2.021	0.387	244.141
20	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	20	1'31.629	2.611	0.590	242.569
View full results

What happened in Free Practice 2?

Under the lights in FP2, Verstappen set the early pace on medium tyres at 1m29.706s and, although briefly being usurped by Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri, Max improved to 1m29.290s after 15 minutes.

Bottas took P1 away with a lap of 1m29.079s, which was soon topped by Hamilton on 1m29.018s, 0.061s faster – both still running the medium tyre.

The majority of teams switched to the soft tyre just after the halfway mark, but the flurry of improvements failed to follow as expected – partly due to slow cars getting in the way of rivals on fast laps, while Verstappen complained of keeping temperature in his fronts.

Gasly jumped up to third, 0.081s off the pace, on softs. Verstappen stayed out for a third run on the same soft tyres, improving his time but staying fourth – almost two tenths off Hamilton's pace.

Neither Mercedes improved on softs but held their 1-2 nonetheless ahead of Gasly and Verstappen. The Alpines of Fernando Alonso and Ocon were next up from Sainz and Tsunoda.

The session ended five minutes early when Leclerc smashed his Ferrari into the barriers at Turn 22, wrecking its right-hand side.