FP1: Piastri leads Leclerc and Verstappen during sole Miami GP practice session

Oscar Piastri topped the timesheets during Friday’s sole practice session for the Miami Grand Prix, leading the way from Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen after a late crash for Ollie Bearman brought out the red flags – scuppering some soft-tyre runs.

With the Sprint format in play for the second time this season at the Miami International Autodrome, drivers had just one hour of practice to get to grips with the track and dial in their cars ahead of Sprint Qualifying later in the day.

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As such, there was a flurry of activity when the green light switched on at the end of the pit lane at 1230 local time – the majority of the field kicking off their weekends with some leisurely runs on Pirelli’s medium and hard compound tyres.

There were some minor dramas in the early minutes, with Lando Norris reporting that tools had been left in his cockpit (an incident that will be investigated by the stewards post-session), and Yuki Tsunoda commenting that his seat height felt “quite high”.

Around a quarter of the way into the session, it was George Russell who held P1 – via a wild slide through Turns 14 and 15 – thanks to a 1m 28.058s on mediums, three-tenths clear of Norris and half a second up on Verstappen, who was in action shortly after becoming a dad.

That compared to the Dutchman’s pole-sitting times of 1m 27.641s in Sprint Qualifying and 1m 27.241s in Qualifying at last year’s event, with plenty more time to come during the late-session runs on the softest red-marked rubber.

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Before those runs started, Norris had another scare when he approached a slow-moving Esteban Ocon under braking for the Turn 17 hairpin and narrowly avoided running into him – that incident also being noted by the stewards for a post-session investigation.

When drivers finally made the switch to softs, with Russell’s aforementioned benchmark still standing over team mate Kimi Antonelli, Williams’ Carlos Sainz and the two McLaren drivers, the timesheets were sent into another frenzy of green and purple sectors.

Piastri charged to the top of the timing screen as the chequered flag approached, despite a brush with the wall – the championship leader producing a 1m 27.128s to finish comfortably clear of Leclerc, Verstappen and Williams pair Sainz and Alex Albon.

A host of drivers behind missed out on representative soft-tyre laps, though, given that Bearman lost control of his car exiting Turn 11 and spun around into the Turn 12 wall with five minutes remaining, bringing out the red flags. “Ah, man – sorry,” lamented the rookie over the radio.

With the clock ticking down to zero, Isack Hadjar’s bright pink Racing Bulls car rounded out the top six, from Russell (whose best time came on mediums given Bearman’s shunt), Tsunoda and Antonelli, as Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso completed the top-10 places.

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Norris was another driver to lose out from the red flag, ending up 12th between the other VCARB 02 of Liam Lawson while Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton was in 13th. The Briton was followed by Kick Sauber racers Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto, and the sidelined Bearman.

Pierre Gasly and Jack Doohan put their Alpines 17th and 19th respectively, sandwiching the team’s former driver Ocon, while the second Aston Martin machine driven by Lance Stroll completed the 20-strong pack.

Drivers and teams will now regroup in the paddock before returning to the track for Sprint Qualifying, which is scheduled to get under way at 1630 local time and will set the grid for Saturday’s 100-kilometre Sprint race.