George Russell tops timing charts with Antonelli absent from Barcelona GP FP1

Russell's lap time of 1:16.363 was enough to edge out Piastri ahead of Barcelona's second practice later today.

The weekend's opening session, featuring seven rookies taking part in Free Practice, got off to a messy start for Williams. Carlos Sainz's FW48 had to be brought back to the pits after a steering wheel malfunction, while his teammate for the session, Academy driver Luke Browning, failed to emerge as the team worked on electrical issues.

Making his FP1 debut for Cadillac, F2's Colton Herta suffered an early scare at Turn 8 - the former IndyCar driver slid onto the kerb , but was able to save himself from a spin as he hopes to impress the American giants, as well as the rest of the F1 paddock.

After the first twenty minutes of action, it was Russell on top of the timing charts with a 1:17.353, two tenths ahead of McLaren's Oscar Piastri and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc. Meanwhile, Gabriel Bortoleto suffered a near miss himself in his Audi, losing control into Turn 7 and having to go through the gravel, fortunate not to have ended his FP1.

Verstappen's struggles with a tricky RB22 looked like continuing after the first half of action, with the Dutchman telling his race engineer: "I don't know what to make of it, to be honest. Like one corner I have understeer, then oversteer. I have everything. It's just... horrendous."

Verstappen did, however, go P1 on soft tyres just after the halfway mark with a 1:17.047, but this was responded to almost immediately by Russell, who went nearly seven tenths faster than his rival.

Russell's championship rival, Kimi Antonelli, sat this session out, replaced by Mercedes reserve Fred Vesti for FP1, while the man now in P2 in the Drivers' standings, Lewis Hamilton was replaced by F2 talent Dino Beganovic, - the Swede's 1:17.778 brought him up to P7 with ten minutes to go. Also impressing would have been Alpine reserve Paul Aron - climbing into the top 6 for Audi in FP1.

McLaren reserve Leo Fornaroli also impressed, making the top five in the late stages as he replaced world champion Lando Norris for the session.