F1 Grand Prix practice results: Leclerc fastest in Saudi Arabian GP on Friday

Bahrain GP winner Leclerc was fastest in FP1 and under the floodlights in FP2, but he hit the wall at Turn 4 in the latter and was forced to limp back to the pits, ruining his long run.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was second fastest on the day, ahead of the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.

The big talking point of the day was off the track, however, following the attack at the nearby Aramco oil facility.

First practice took place in daytime, meaning it was not fully representative of either qualifying or the race, both of which will occur in cooler conditions in the evening.

Verstappen set the early pace on, working down to 1m30.888s on the hard tyres, eight tenths faster than Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri.

A red flag was required after 18 minutes when the 50-metre board on the approach to Turn 1 worked loose and fell on to the track. It was run over by a series of cars, led by Lando Norris’s McLaren, scattering its remains.

Teams re-emerged on soft rubber, and Leclerc suffered a big slide exiting Turn 14 on his first run, while Verstappen caught traffic on his opener – both bailing out of their laps.

Leclerc then ran again on hards, getting within six tenths of Verstappen’s fastest time. Gasly went P2 on softs, despite brushing the wall, and Verstappen had a big snap of oversteer at Turn 10 that led to a wild moment.

Leclerc improved to 0.304s off Verstappen on softs, and then eclipsed the world champion with a lap of 1m30.772s towards the end, which proved the quickest lap of the session.

Verstappen’s hard-tyred lap was good for P2, 0.116s slower, with Valtteri Bottas in third for Alfa Romeo, just ahead of the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.

Gasly and Tsunoda were next up, ahead of Sergio Perez’s Red Bull, Esteban Ocon