Stroll fastest in busy FP1, as grass catches fire in China

Lance Stroll was the fastest driver in the one and only practice session of the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix. Aston Martin decided to let the Canadian driver complete lap on soft tyres (Fernando Alonso was not given the same opportunity), and he finished the session in P1 with a lap time of 1:36.302. Oscar Piastri finished in P2 ahead of Max Verstappen.

As it was expected because it is the only free practice session, the track was as busy as it would be in a Q1, with everyone constantly trying to learn about the circuit as much as possible in a short amount of time.

Lance Stroll was the fastest man in terms of lap time, but it is hard to draw conclusions from the results, as teams had different gameplans for FP1. Red Bull did most of their running on mediums and a fitted the softs for a couple of fast laps. Ferrari only used one set of soft tyres during the entire session, and the two Mercedes drivers and Fernando Alonso only did laps on the hardest compound.

Bizarre red flag moment

After loose drain covers earlier this year, there was a new and bizarre reason to wave a red flag during a FP session at the Chinese Grand Prix. Unfortunately for the teams, the grass caught fire after 15 minutes, leading to everyone to be ordered to enter the pit lane. It took the marshalls a couple of minutes to deal with the incident

Alonso discovers the new parts of the track

Free practice is all about discovering every part of the track. 40 minutes into the session, Fernando Alonso was told to enter the pit lane, however, the Spanish driver locked up and could not turn left. As a result, similarly Kimi Räikkönen some years ago in Brazil, Alonso was able to try out an exit road. A couple of minutes later, Oscar Piastri almost went down the same path, but decided to brake hard and reverse instead.