McLaren and Norris defy Techincal Directive to set the pace in FP1 ahead of Verstappen and Hamilton

With the new Technical Directive surrounding flexi-wings coming into force this weekend in Barcelona, there was talk as to whether McLaren's pace would take a hit due to the potential changes that would have to be made.

However, after FP1, the British team still look to be the team to beat, with Norris three-tenths quicker than Verstappen in P2, who was one-hundredth of a second faster than Hamilton in P3.

Behind the top three was Charles Leclerc in fourth, while championship leader Oscar Piastri could only set the fifth fastest time of the session.

Liam Lawson in the Racing Bulls was the best of the rest in P6, with Ollie Bearman and Isack Hadjar behind the New Zealander in P7 and P8, respectively.

Yuki Tsunoda finished the session in P9, while the Alpine of Pierre Gasly rounded out the top ten, with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli down in P11 and P18, although they did not use any soft tyres.

After the first half an hour of the opening session of the weekend, it was the Mercedes of Russell who was the fastest on the medium tyres, with the yellow-walled tyres and the hard tyres being used by the grid to start off the weekend.

However, going into the second half of the session, Hamilton and Leclerc in the Ferraris were the first to put on the soft tyres to put in some qualifying laps, with others following suit very quickly.

Fastest laps were traded to start off with, but a 1.13.7 from Norris saw him jump to the top of the standings, three-tenths quicker than Verstappen in P2 with Hamilton and Leclerc third and fourth, respectively.

There was talk that McLaren would have to make changes due to the amount of front wing flexing as a result of the new Technical Directive, but no changes were made to their front wing coming into this weekend, with their pace looking unaffected by the rule change.

Before the session got underway, two reserve drivers took part in the session, with Ryo Hirakawa replaing Esteban Ocon in the Haas, while Victor Martins sat in for Alex Albon at Williams.

The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya has always been very high on tyre degradation, and coupling that up with the sweltering temperatures in Barcelona beating down onto the track, the hardest compounds of tyres were in use for the weekend.

Flow-viz for Hamilton and areo rakes for Liam Lawson were also in use during the first ten to 15 minutes of the session, with teams potentially looking to get some valuable data as the new flexi-wings Technical Directive comes into effect this weekend.