Alfa Romeo driver Valtteri Bottas set the initial pace with a 1m26.993s, but that was rapidly bettered by a series of quicker times from Zhou Guanyu, Fernando Alonso, Hamilton and Lando Norris, as first place benchmark was 10s lower by the end of the opening five minutes of the one-hour session.
Alonso and Norris exchanged positions at the front, with the latter and the two Ferrari drivers the only runners using the medium tyres during the early laps while all the others used the hards as they gained confidence with every tour and benefitted from F1 rubber being laid down on the tight, twisty, city track.
Just past the five-minute mark, Charles Leclerc’s second flier sent him top with a 1m15.931s before Sainz, who had thwacked the barrier inside the second part of the Swimming Pool, but escaped without damage only minutes earlier aboard his Ferrari, then forged ahead on a 1m15.198s.
Heading into the second 10 minutes, Leclerc moved back ahead on a 1m15.037s after a brief trip to the Ferrari garage while his team-mate continued to pound around uninterrupted.
Leclerc’s next flier lowered the benchmark to a 1m14.562s before Sainz ended the session’s opening 20 minutes quickest on a 1m14.401s, which he then beat with a 1m14.245s before heading to the pits along with most of the rest of the pack.
At this stage, Alonso trailed in third with Verstappen fourth and not matching the high early lap total of the Ferrari drivers after pitting before them to make set-up changing having complained that his early set-up was causing so much bottoming out that he feared he was “going to shunt”.
After a brief lull in action, more drivers emerged to use the mediums for the first time, which Hamilton used to post a 1m14.035s and move ahead of the Ferrari pair at the head of the times.
Verstappen also used the mediums to gain time, but after two fliers he had still not moved ahead of Sainz’s previous benchmark as he reported that Red Bull’s adjustments and had not improved his ride and felt it was “still doing the same thing on the bumps – it’s really not good”.
Source: Autosport