F1 News, Reports and Race Results

São Paulo GP: Norris, Russell and Bearman go quickest in FP1

It was an all-British top three on the timesheets at the end of first practice in Brazil on Friday, with Lando Norris snatching the honours at the last minute for McLaren.

George Russell had topped the times up until then, but had to settled for second ahead of Haas' reserve driver Oliver Bearman who is sitting in for today's sessions for an unwell Kevin Magnussen.

Oscar Piastri was fourth ahead of Williams' Alex Albon, with the two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz having a quiet start in P6 and P7. Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez all finished the hour outside the top ten.

2024 São Paulo Grand Prix - Free Practice 1 results

The races are coming thick and fast now as we near the end of the season, and just five days after wrapping up in Mexico the teams were back in action at Brazil's Autódromo José Carlos Pace for the build up to São Paulo Grand Prix.

First to sprint into action was Sauber's Valtteri Bottas followed by Pierre Gasly in the Alpine, both making their bow on the medium compound tyres in sunny conditions. Track temperatures were already in the mid-50s Celsius, but very variable conditions were forecast for the rest of the weekend.

Pretty soon only the RB and Williams cars were still on pit lane, everyone else anxious to get up to speed. Oscar Piastri took an early lead for McLaren with a time of 1:13.478s, 0.018s ahead of Gasly's opening offer. The RB cars broke cover having opted for soft tyres, while Alex Albon had also gone out but was immediately back in reporting a loose headrest.

George Russell and Lando Norris took over at the top of the timings before Sergio Perez found 0.117s to go top with a time of 1:12.099s after ten minutes of running. Russell soon responded to go back to the top on 1:11.806s, before Max Verstappen found an extra tenth to take the honours for Red Bull.

The track had been substantially resurfaced for this year's race contributing to some minor incidents. There was a worrying moment for Lewis Hamilton on his in-lap where the Mercedes just avoided going into the back of Carlos Sainz' Ferrari, while Franco Colapinto had a big slide in the Williams after taking too much kerb exiting turn 4. There was also a worrying moment for Yuki Tsunoda locking up a wheel on the RB.

Hamilton neatly dissected the gap in the times between Verstappen and Russell to go second at the midway point of the one hour session. Fernando Alonso was up to fourth for Aston Martin ahead of Perez and Sainz. Then it was Russell who decided to go for a proper qualifying simulation on soft tyres, finding a full second as he pulled well ahead of Verstappen to log a time of 1:10.791s.

Finally it was time for a ten minute soft tyre frenzy to finish things off. Charles Leclerc was one of the first to head out with Colapinto, Oliver Bearman and Zhou Guanyu. It was an impressive run for Bearman who went second in the Haas. He was in for Kevin Magnussen who had called in sick earlier in the morning.

Norris took up third place ahead of an impressive lap from Albon which had put he Williams ahead of Sainz. Just 0.309s covered the top five with less than five minutes remaining. With everyone back out for a final run, there were a flurry of fliers which left Norris snatching the top spot in overtime.

Norris, Russell and Bearman made it an all-British top three as the chequered flag was waved, followed by Piastri, Albon, Leclerc and Sainz. Nico Hulkenberg was also in the top ten as the session concluded, ahead of Alondo and Gasly. Just missing out on the top sports were RB's Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda.

Verstappen bailed out of his final promising lap to leave him in P15, just ahead of Hamilton who had continued to run on his mediums to the end of the session. It left him complaining bitterly about the bumpy nature of the resurfaced track. Even Russell was moved to report, "That was one bumpy ride. Wow!" The team will now look to adjust the ride height of the car without hampering performance.

All ten teams will be back for an even bumpier sprint qualifying in just under three hours time.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.