The session got underway five minutes late due to the track needing a general clean-up of some debris.

Almost immediately, Yuki Tsunoda became the first to test the barriers, spinning at Turn 4 and hitting them side-on, damaging bort the rear and front wing. The Japanese driver then returned to the pits to repair the car.

The opening runs on hard tyres showed a fairly balanced pace at the top, with George Russell leading the way ahead of Max Verstappen, while the two McLarens got off to a slower start, remaining out of the top positions.

Verstappen and Russell were also involved in a minor on-track incident, with the Dutch driver noted for impeding by the stewards, though the matter was quickly closed.

In the middle part of the session, there was time for some long runs before all teams switched to soft tyres to carry out their qualifying simulations.

Once everyone switched to medium tyres, McLaren reasserted themselves, with Oscar Piastri setting the fastest time at 1:10.193, followed by his teammate just under three tenths behind.

Ferrari, on the other hand, chose to save an extra set of tyres ahead of this afternoon’s sprint qualifying, opting not to run any simulation laps.

Towards the end of the session, Piastri improved further, lowering his time to 1:09.998 — the only driver to break the 1:10 barrier — with Norris finishing just 0.261 seconds behind.

Verstappen, meanwhile, attempted his soft-tyre simulation but aborted the lap near the end, returning to the pits.

On his very last attempt, Piastri lowered the benchmark even further, setting an 1:09.975. Norris, meanwhile, settled just 0.023 seconds ahead and took P1, while Hamilton struggled with a spin towards the end.