The F1 results are in from first practice at the
Brazilian Grand Prix, which is the only practice session of the weekend at
Interlagos.
It’s an F1 Sprint weekend in Brazil, with a
newly-resurfaced Interlagos track
coming into play for the teams and drivers – with just 60 minutes’ worth of
running to get to grips with the conditions before Sprint qualifying.
Lando Norris tops only practice session at Interlagos
The big news before the session started was the fact Kevin
Magnussen was to be replaced by Oliver Bearman during Friday’s running at Haas,
the Dane not well enough to take part in the session as the 2025 Haas driver
took his place.
Medium tyre running characterised the majority of the
session at Interlagos, with the drivers looking to get to grips with the track
in their only hour of free practice before they get into meaningful running
later on Friday.
A 1:11.712 from Max Verstappen had been the fastest time set
on mediums, four hundredths faster than Lewis Hamilton, before George Russell
made a significant jump in performance when he moved to the soft tyres – going
nine tenths faster than the Red Bull driver over one lap.
A wider switch to soft tyres followed in the closing minutes
of the session, the drivers looking to get at least one flying lap in on the
fastest tyres ahead of Sprint qualifying.
Bearman went to within 14 thousandths of a second of
Russell’s initial benchmark, ahead of Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz, Fernando
Alonso and Charles Leclerc in the final minutes.
Norris clocked a 1:10.610 to pip Russell in the final moments, with Russell and Bearman rounding off an all-British top three.
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