Charles Leclerc was fastest after the first hour of FP1 at Imola, ahead of the surprising Mercedes of George Russell and teammate Carlos Sainz. The ‘green’ track put the riders in difficulty in finding the limit of a very technical and complicated track also due to the new escape routes in some points. The alarm bell for Ferrari does not come from the track, but from the pits Charles Leclerc was forced to mount the third Power Unit of the season for FP1 in Imola, mainly as a precaution: there had been a small alert at the end of the race in Miami and, not wanting to waste time in evaluating the updates, it was decided to change the engine which should return to the car later in the season. Ferrari’s main rivals showed more than one difficulty after the first sixty minutes: Red Bull did not digest the second sector, especially the Acque Minerali where Max Verstappen made a mistake as well as one entering the Variante Gresini in search of the best time, while McLaren appears to have followed a different programme, also fitting rakes to Norris’s car in the early stages. Yuki Tsunoda confirmed the good form of him and Racing Bulls, who could do very well on their home track, while Aston Martin continues to struggle and finds itself on the edge of the top 10 with Fernando Alonso. Oliver Bearman for Haas once again showed a good performance after the Jeddah weekend, finishing the session in fifteenth position and without any major errors.
FP1 Imola: technical knockout for Albon, the soft proves constant on the green track
The first laps of the weekend in FP1 at Imola saw the two Mercedes drivers in the lead on the medium compound, but the programs were evidently different with Red Bull on the soft and Ferrari on the hard. New to the session is Oliver Bearman in the Haas VF-24, replacing Kevin Magnussen for the first of six FP1s with Haas over the course of this year: Team Principal of the American team Ayao Komatsu emphasized that these six hours will be more important for assessing English compared to his Formula 2 season. The drivers put the new gravel escape routes of the Romagna circuit to the test right from the first laps, during which a very fit Racing Bulls could be seen on a circuit that on paper should be very favorable for the characteristics of the VCARB-01. During the session the soft compound, C5, showed very positive durability, guaranteeing the drivers more fast laps with little fuel.
The first accident of the weekend is caused by Alexander Albon, stopped at the exit of the Acque Minerali due to a technical problem on his FW46 as a result of a hit when landing from a curb, causing a brief red flag. The season of James Vowles’ team got off to an uphill start with many accidents, often the fault of the drivers themselves, and it doesn’t seem to be showing signs of recovery even from a reliability point of view. A few minutes after the restart Lando Norris complained of a problem with his McLaren MCL38 and returned to the pits. The two Alpine drivers reported a lot of bottoming and bouncing on the straights of the circuit dedicated to Enzo and Dino Ferrari, perhaps due to a too rigid basic set-up. Lewis Hamilton was the protagonist of a small error leaving the Acque Minerali, with his W15 spinning but without any damage: the 7-time world champion resumed running without problems in FP1 in Imola.
