Friday practice for the São Paulo Grand Prix was all about the outgoing and incoming champions, as ↗︎Lando Norris and Kimi Antonelli alternated within the top 2 places in the opening day’s sessions.
On a track where he’s taken pole in each of the last 2 years, Norris immediately looked comfortable in a McLaren car, which is the only one on the grid to bring major upgrades this weekend, as the Woking-based team looks to return to form.
Antonelli’s headline FP2 time, however, was particularly ominous, a quarter of a second clear of the pack. The newly crowned champion was full of confidence, and looks to have the upper hand on teammate George Russell, the Brit consistently 3-4 tenths off throughout both sessions and taking a 5-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race.
Likewise, Oscar Piastri was some way off his teammate and, after sitting out FP1, ended his only session 5th. McLaren can, however, be hopeful of a resurgence this weekend, also showing strong pace in their race runs.
Max Verstappen was 3rd in both sessions and, with a catalogue of historic drives in São Paulo, should not be ruled out despite again struggling with downshift issues. He was the quickest of the four drivers currently within 16 points in the fight for 2nd in the championship. Teammate Isack Hadjar was only a couple of tenths off in FP1, but struggled down to 9th in the second session, behind the Audi of Gabriel Bortoleto in his home race.
Amidst the fallout from their Mexico City tangle, Ferrari had a difficult Friday, with Lewis Hamilton in particular locking up and running off track on a couple of occasions. The final sector times in FP2 were almost entirely dictated by engine performance, thus being the area where the Scuderia particularly struggled. They also found it difficult to generate tyre temperatures on short and long runs, and were clearly fourth of the top teams throughout, ending FP2 6th and 7th.
Rookie watch in FP1 and FP2
Like in Mexico City, FP1 was dominated by a number of rookies being given practice appearances; seven on this occasion. Gabriele Mini was the fastest of these, ending an eye-catching 7th for Alpine, ahead of teammate Franco Colapinto in 9th.
Leonardo Fornaroli was comfortably the next best in 11th for McLaren, followed by Luke Browning for Williams in 17th; however, the Brit was creditably under a tenth off teammate Alexander Albon, as the Williams continues to look like a car that may struggle to get out of Q1.
Browning finished just ahead of Haas’ Rafael Camara, making his Grand Prix debut at his home race this weekend instead of Ryo Hirakawa, with Esteban Ocon now confirmed to not be returning for the remainder of the season. The Brazilian went on to finish FP2 half a second away from teammate Ollie Bearman and impeded Charles Leclerc on the pit straight, but did a fine job of bedding his way in.
Colton Herta, Dino Beganovic and Freddie Slater completed the FP1 field, the latter again suffering mechanical misfortune for Audi that limited his running. This also put Nico Hulkenberg, whose car Slater was running, out of FP2.
As ever, Alpine and Racing Bulls were evenly matched, with Colapinto leading the four cars from 11th-14th in the second session, albeit behind Bearman’s Haas, who continues to show strong pace after missing out on points in Mexico following his incident with Hulkenberg.
A wet weekend ahead?
FP2 in particular was dominated by drivers struggling to generate tyre temperature, as a damp mist descended upon the Interlagos circuit. With the threat of rain for the remainder of the weekend, Friday’s dry running could yet be deemed irrelevant.
Of course, this would not be unusual for Interlagos, with 3 of the last 4 years seeing wet running during the weekend. Some of the lower teams may, therefore, see this race as an opportunity for an unexpected result, such as Williams, Aston Martin and Cadillac, who were again clearly the three slowest teams.
