George Russell led a Mercedes 1-2 in first practice for the 2023 FIA Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton second ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc third. Last year’s Miami race winner and defending F1 champion Max Verstappen finished fourth.
Hamilton set the pace early in the session with a lap of 1:34.527 set on medium tyres but that was soon beaten by Verstappen who used the hard compound Pirelli tyres to take top spot.
Carlos Sainz then went quickest with a 1:33.823 before Hamilton and then Verstappen jumped back to P1 with the Dutchman posting a lap of 1:32.465 and then improving on that set the bar at 1:31.826.
Many of the field then made a shift to soft compound tyres and Haas’ Nico Hülkenberg took over in P1 with a lap of 1:31.392 set just before the halfway mark.
Verstappen then went quickest of all with a lap of 1m31.054, while the Dutchman’s team-mate Sergio Pérez, slotted into third place behind Hülkenberg.
The Haas driver couldn’t make an attempt to recover P1, however, as he then crashed at Turn 3. The German driver went wide on entry and spun before hitting the wall with the front right corner of his car, breaking the suspension.
That brought out the red flags for eight minutes and when the session resumed Verstappen, on softs, improved to a 1:30.549. Leclerc then slotted into second place before he was dropped back by Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz. Leclerc then improved again to move ahead of his team-mate before the Mercedes drivers bolted on soft tyres for the time and Hamilton jumped from 19th to first with a 1:30.337.
Leclerc then moved ahead of Verstappen thanks to a lap of 1:30.449 but Russell had the last word when his first run on softs vaulted him to first ahead of Hamilton with a time of 1:30.125.
2023 FIA Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix – Free Practice 1
1 George Russell Mercedes 18 1:30.125
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 24 1:30.337 0.212
3 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 23 1:30.449 0.324
4 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 22 1:30.549 0.424
5 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 23 1:30.724 0.599
6 Pierre Gasly Alpine 20 1:31.104 0.979
7 Fernando Alonso 24 1:31.231 1.106
8 Lance Stroll 24 1:31.337 1.212
9 Nico Hulkenberg Haas 14 1:31.392 1.267
10 Esteban Ocon Alpine 27 1:31.542 1.417
11 Sergio Perez Red Bull Racing 22 1:31.566 1.441
12 Oscar Piastri McLaren 24 1:31.810 1.685
13 Kevin Magnussen Haas 25 1:31.853 1.728
14 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo 24 1:31.902 1.777
15 Alex Albon Williams 25 1:31.903 1.778
16 Lando Norris McLaren 23 1:31.997 1.872
17 Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo 22 1:32.134 2.009
18 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 28 1:32.169 2.044
19 Logan Sargeant Williams 27 1:32.619 2.494
20 Nyck de Vries AlphaTauri 10 1:34.637 4.512
