2025 Saudi Arabian GP FP1: Pierre Gasly tops first practice

The 2025 season’s first on-track action in Jeddah delivered a shake-up few saw coming, with Pierre Gasly topping the timesheets for Alpine in a surprising and well-timed flyer on soft tyres. The Frenchman pipped McLaren’s Lando Norris by just seven-thousandths of a second in the opening practice session of the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, taking full advantage of the cooling track conditions and a late run to vault himself to the top. It was an unexpected highlight for both driver and team, especially coming off the back of Alpine’s first points of the season in Bahrain just a week ago.

The session began under hot and humid skies at 16:30 local time, with Esteban Ocon leading a tightly-packed field onto the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Most drivers started on medium tyres, cautiously easing into the rhythm of this fearsome, high-speed street track. It didn’t take long, though, for the walls to remind everyone of their presence — Oscar Piastri clipped one early on and later radioed McLaren to check for damage, while Lewis Hamilton and Pierre Gasly both had brushes with the barriers that forced them to back off. Meanwhile, Ollie Bearman – back at the venue where he stunned the paddock with his Ferrari debut last year – suffered the biggest hit, locking up in his Haas and nudging the wall hard enough to need a new front wing.

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Early pace came from George Russell, who initially set the benchmark with a 1:29.674 on mediums, leading Norris and Verstappen at that point. But as the soft tyre runs kicked in, times began to tumble. Carlos Sainz, still finding his feet in the Williams, briefly slotted into second before Norris unleashed a 1:29.246 – three-tenths up on Russell and comfortably ahead of his McLaren teammate, Piastri. But then came Gasly, whose lap of 1:29.239 vaulted him into the spotlight. It marked a standout moment in a season where Alpine have otherwise struggled to make their mark.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc quietly slipped into third, splitting the two McLarens, while Alex Albon impressed with a strong fifth for Williams. Russell ended up sixth after failing to match his early pace once the field switched to softs, complaining of something feeling “weird under braking” in his W16. Sainz settled into seventh, while Hamilton, Verstappen, and Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top ten — the reigning world champion still looking uncomfortable behind the wheel of his updated Red Bull.

McLaren, despite being edged out for top spot, looked strong once again, continuing their momentum from a dominant showing in Bahrain. While Piastri was fourth, Norris appeared more dialled in, outpacing his teammate and showing encouraging adaptation to the MCL39 — a car he admitted earlier in the weekend had forced him away from his natural driving style. The team’s newly introduced diffuser and revised rear corner may yet give them the edge under the lights.

Further down the order, Liam Lawson finished 11th but faced a post-session investigation for allegedly breaching Race Director instructions, while rookie Isack Hadjar voiced frustration over traffic during his late soft tyre run. Kimi Antonelli ended 13th, just behind Nico Hülkenberg and Fernando Alonso. Alpine’s Jack Doohan and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll were 16th and 17th, respectively, followed by Bearman, Ocon, and Gabriel Bortoleto in the final three spots.

FP1 may only be a warm-up, but the pecking order remained anything but clear. With FP2 taking place under the lights — and in race-representative conditions — the true picture of this evolving 2025 season would start to sharpen. With new upgrades in play across Red Bull, Ferrari, and McLaren, and a fiercely tight championship fight developing at the front, every lap under Jeddah’s floodlights could prove pivotal.

2025 Saudi Arabian GP FP1 Results

2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix FP1, 18 April 2025