RB’s Daniel Ricciardo was the shock pacesetter because the 2024 F1 season kicked into motion with first apply on the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Ricciardo ended up simply 0.032s away from the McLaren pair of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, with all three utilizing Pirelli’s softest tyre to finish their quickest laps.
Ricciardo’s teammate Yuki Tsunoda, additionally on mushy tyres, was fourth-quickest.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was the quickest of the medium-tyre runners, forward of reigning world champion Max Verstappen, who was solely sixth.
Verstappen was sad together with his new Pink Bull RB20, complaining a number of instances all through the session about a wide range of points, together with “very dangerous” downshifts and upshifts and a “actually bizarre” throttle utility.
After setting the tempo within the early phases, the Dutchman bemoaned that “every part was miles off” in his new challenger.
George Russell was the quickest Mercedes driver in seventh, 0.382s adrift of Ricciardo’s benchmark time.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was eighth, forward of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, who accomplished the top-10 for Sauber.
Alpine had been anticipating a tricky begin to the season and that definitely proved to be the case in FP1, with Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly winding up a lowly seventeenth and 18th, some two seconds off the tempo.
Haas ended up on the very backside of the pile with Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg nineteenth and twentieth respectively.
