All 20 drivers wasted no time getting out because the condensed dash race format solely leaves groups a single-hour apply to nail down their set-ups for your complete weekend.
Due to the shortage of apply time, duties had been cut up between race runs and only a handful of qualifying sims, with all groups kicking off proceedings on a dry Interlagos circuit on Pirelli’s onerous tyre compound.
Crimson Bull’s world champion Max Verstappen instantly set a lap of 1m13.950s on onerous tyres to go high forward of team-mate Sergio Perez, who’s seeking to rebound from a heartbreaking Lap 1 crash in his Mexico dwelling race.
Each drivers quickly improved on the identical compound with Verstappen’s 1m13.138s placing him 4 tenths forward of the Mexican, adopted by Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, Haas man Nico Hulkenberg and the second Mercedes of George Russell on the 15-minute mark, who later leapfrogged his team-mate into third.
After 23 minutes Yuki Tsunoda lit up the timing screens within the AlphaTauri, the Japanese driver stopping the clocks at 1m28.802s as the primary of the medium runners.
However simply earlier than the midway mark Tsunoda was bested by Verstappen after which Russell, who led with a 1m11.865s on the identical medium compound, earlier than Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso cut up Russell and Verstappen in second whereas nonetheless utilizing hards.
Kevin Magnussen, who was a late arrival after his Wednesday flight obtained cancelled, briefly appeared within the high three as the primary of the few soft-tyre runners.
His team-mate Hulkenberg got here inside 0.063s of briefly snatching away first place from Russell, the Haas duo previous a flurry of sentimental tyre runs from Ferrari and Williams within the last third.
Russell was lastly dislodged by Ferrari’s Sainz with a 1m11.732s on softs, with Leclerc making it a Ferrari 1-2.
Russell stayed third, forward of Hulkenberg, Williams man Alex Albon and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll.
Pierre Gasly was seventh for Alpine, adopted by Zhou Guanyu within the Alfa Romeo. Logan Sargeant and Magnussen rounded out the highest 10.
Alonso ended up in eleventh forward of Hamilton and Tsunoda, whereas Daniel Ricciardo shadowed his AlphaTauri team-mate in 14th.
Esteban Ocon adopted in 15, with world champion Verstappen a low-key sixteenth – one second down on the Ferraris – after solely working on onerous tyres.
Valtteri Bottas cut up the 2 Crimson Bulls as Perez adopted in 18th.
McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri propped up the timesheets after not setting instances on the softest compounds, electing to avoid wasting them for later.
The session ran with out noteworthy incidents, though Norris and Hulkenberg escaped injury once they made glancing contact on the last nook, which netted the German a visit to the stewards.
Hulkenberg later appeared to lose energy popping out of Flip 4, trundling again to the pits.
