Formula 1 returned to its traditional weekend format for the Emilia Romagna GP for the first time in nearly two months, as FP1 began in Imola. New for this session is Oliver Bearman, who will drive in place of Kevin Magnussen in the first of six FP1 sessions he will participate for Haas in 2024.
The two Ferrari’s were the first cars to go out on track, as Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc greeted the home crowd with the heavily updated SF-24.
Early on, Pierre Gasly reported an issue with his brake pedal “feeling too soft”. The Frenchman pitted immediately for repairs. His team-mate Esteban Ocon also reported problems on his side, with the ride height meaning he was “almost jumping” on the straights.
Most of the drivers went out in the early minutes, in a mixture of soft, medium and hard tyres.
Some of the drivers tested the new run-off areas in Imola, especially with the extra gravel at the exit of Acque Minerali, with both Lewis Hamilton and former title rival Max Verstappen running wide at the famous section.
Yuki Tsunoda was another to have a moment in the gravel, at the exit of the first Rivazza corner, losing the back-end of his RB and backing out of a fast lap.
The first red flag of the weekend came after just 20 minutes of running, as Alex Albon – who recently announced his commitment to Williams – stopped on the side of the track, as he lost power in his FW46 coming down the hill after Piratella, coming to a halt at the exit of Acque Minerali.
George Russell led the way with a 1:17.909 on the medium tyres as the session came to a halt, ahead of Piastri and Hamilton. Behind them, Verstappen, Tsunoda, Sainz, Leclerc, Perez, Stroll and Ricciardo completed the top 10.
The session was green-flagged again with 35 minutes remaining on the clock.
As the session restarted, Charles Leclerc put the soft tyres on and went straight to the top of the timings, with a 1:17.438 putting him nearly half-a-second clear of Russell’s time.
He was soon beaten by his team-mate Carlos Sainz, who set a 1:17.120 to go fastest.
After his team-mate had a huge snap in the exit of Rivazza earlier on, Daniel Ricciardo went very wide in the gravel of the same corner, but no major damage to the VCARB.
Sainz went wide out of the Variante Alta as he missed the apex, and his replacement at Ferrari for 2025 didn’t have much luck either two corners earlier, as Lewis Hamilton spun his Mercedes after hitting the kerb in a hard way out of Acque Minerali.
With just 20 minutes of the session remaining, there was a bit of lull out on track, as drivers returned to the pits to give back a set of Pirelli tyres. The classified order of the top 10 was: Leclerc, Russell, Sainz, Tsunoda, Hamilton, Piastri, Perez, Verstappen, Stroll and Ricciardo – all on the soft tyres, but different timings for the runs, notably the Red Bulls and McLarens doing their runs much earlier on.
Verstappen went out in a new set of soft tyres, but had to come back straightaway due to a visor tape sticking in his brake duct. When he eventually got his lap in, it was a quarter of a second slower than Leclerc, with his team-mate Sergio Perez beating him to P4 by just 0.007 seconds.
The Dutchman was very unhappy with the balance in his RB20, reporting that his car was a “disaster” through turn 11 with “no grip”. He soon had a massive snap of oversteer heading into Variante Alta, and had to take evasive action going through the grass to avoid spinning.
Winner last time out in Miami, Lando Norris’s late lap in the session, on the soft tyres, was only enough to get him to 12th place, over 1.1 seconds off Leclerc’s pace in a flow-vis covered McLaren.
Verstappen’s struggles continued in his final run, as once again the Dutchman found the gravel trap in Acque Minerali and heading off the road.
The final classified order of the top 10 was: Leclerc, Russell, Sainz, Perez, Verstappen, Tsunoda, Hamilton, Norris, Piastri and Alonso.
Behind them, Gasly, Stroll, Ricciardo, Ocon, Bearman, Bottas, Zhou, Sargeant, Albon and Hulkenberg rounded out the field, respectively.
