Mercedes Dominates Madring FP1 as Hamilton Makes Statement
The Madring’s first taste of Formula 1 running passed under green all the way. No red flags, no stoppages, no wrecked machinery. For team principals staring at an unknown, high-load circuit, that alone felt like a small victory.
On the stopwatch, though, the opening hour belonged to Mercedes.
George Russell led the way with a 1:34.145 on the soft tyres, 0.286 seconds clear of championship leader and team-mate Kimi Antonelli as the Silver Arrows locked out the top two spots in the early classification. Behind them, Ferrari and Red Bull lurked rather than roared, with Charles Leclerc third, Lewis Hamilton fourth and Max Verstappen fifth.
Hamilton, though, had already made his statement earlier in the session on the medium C3s, topping the board with a 1:36.066 and then a 1:34.620 before the late soft-tyre flurry reshuffled the order. The seven-time world champion, now third in the standings, knows a win here would drag him right back into the title conversation.
Ferrari’s uneasy peace
Hamilton and Leclerc arrived in Madrid insisting the Monza flashpoint was buried. Hamilton’s brush with his Ferrari team-mate at the first chicane in Italy dumped him into the gravel and down the order, though he recovered to sixth. The pair sat down “face to face” in the days after, Hamilton said, and agreed to move on.
The truce faced a small test in FP1.
Leclerc, on a quick lap from second on the timesheets and running mediums, suddenly found a scarlet car crawling ahead of him. It was Hamilton. The radio could have crackled with fury; instead, Leclerc kept it measured: “I don’t think Lewis knew I was coming.” No fireworks. Not yet.
On pure pace, Ferrari looked sharp on the C3s. Leclerc briefly went fastest with a 1:38.504 before Antonelli and Verstappen knocked him back, and Hamilton then jumped them all. When the dust settled, Hamilton led Leclerc by just 0.105 seconds on one phase of running, a hint that the red car has the speed to pester Mercedes over a lap.
Antonelli’s margin under threat
Antonelli arrives in Spain with a hefty 66-point cushion over Russell after his remarkable Monza victory from 19th on the grid. The Italian does not need to dominate every weekend; he just needs to keep the scoreboard ticking.
Even so, FP1 offered a small reminder that the margin can shrink quickly.
He suffered a lock-up at Turn 13, ran on but escaped without damage, then regrouped to go second behind Hamilton at one stage, 0.345 seconds adrift of the Ferrari before the late soft-tyre runs. When both Mercedes drivers bolted on the C4s, Russell found the extra edge and snatched top spot, while Antonelli’s best left him behind his team-mate by that 0.286-second gap.
For a driver with the upper hand in the championship, it was a gentle nudge that this new, high-energy circuit will not hand him anything for free.
McLaren worries and Racing Bulls trouble
Oscar Piastri’s opening session ended with an unwelcome rattle rather than a lap-time headline. Running sixth with 14 minutes to go, the Australian suddenly reported something loose in the cockpit.
“I have something hanging in the cockpit around my feet. It’s banging my feet,” he radioed. The response from McLaren was immediate and blunt: box. Whatever the issue, the team was not going to risk it on a brand-new track with walls looming.
Yuki Tsunoda’s day also wound down early. The Racing Bulls driver abandoned his first push lap on the softs, then reported an issue and was told to return to the garage. His FP1 was declared done as the team dug into the car.
Rookie Arvid Lindblad, standing in at Racing Bulls, offered his own snapshot of the Madring’s bite. Running 12th on mediums, he complained of being held up and noted two drivers running wide in a fast corner. The culprits? Hamilton and Antonelli, both exploring the outer limits of the new layout.
Audi, Alpine and the midfield shuffle
Nico Hulkenberg’s session carried a bit more edge. Ninth on the timesheets, the Audi driver went for another fast lap on softs only to find Hamilton in his path. His verdict over team radio was terse and clear: “I mean, that’s nasty.” He still managed to improve later, climbing to seventh with a 1:35.533.
Further back, Gabriel Bortoleto opened his day on the hard C2s, the only driver to do so as others leaned on the yellow C3s. The Brazilian, who narrowly missed the points at Monza, focused on early data-gathering rather than fireworks.
Alpine’s pair, Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto, kept a low profile in terms of mileage. Gasly, fresh from a fairytale maiden pole at Monza six years after his first win at the same circuit, logged only a couple of laps. Both drivers, though, carry momentum after scoring points in Italy.
Up at Red Bull, Liam Lawson again stepped into the spotlight. With Isack Hadjar still sidelined by a fractured wrist sustained over the summer break, the New Zealander continues to partner Verstappen. Lawson ran as high as fourth at one stage, just under a second off Hamilton’s early benchmark on the softs, and stayed close to Verstappen’s pace. Tsunoda, in turn, substitutes for Lawson for a third consecutive weekend at Racing Bulls.
La Monumental tests the tyres – and the nerves
The Madring’s great party piece is La Monumental, the 550-metre banked corner with a 24% gradient that produces the highest vertical tyre load of the season. Russell attacked it early, “putting his foot to the floor” and then hitting the brakes hard at the end of the lap to clock an opening 1:45.035 as drivers tiptoed into the unknown.
Pirelli has come armed with the C2 (hard), C3 (medium) and C4 (soft) for the circuit’s debut as Spanish Grand Prix host. With no race history to lean on, every lap matters. The tyre supplier ranks the track among the top five most demanding on the calendar for energy through the tyres, with lateral forces comparable to Barcelona and Silverstone.
That reality shaped the message from pit walls: don’t crash. Esteban Ocon reported “quite high” grip to Haas, an encouraging sign for the weekend’s evolution, and every team boss silently thanked the gods of carbon fibre as the chequered flag fell without a major incident. Hamilton did come perilously close to the wall at one point, underlining how quickly a clean session can unravel here.
A calm first hour, then. No chaos, no broken cars, but plenty of clues. Mercedes have arrived sharp, Ferrari’s intra-team tension sits under a fragile truce, and Antonelli’s once-comfortable lead has a hungry Russell nibbling at its edges.
On a brand-new circuit that punishes mistakes and devours tyres, how long can that comfort last?
