That was a wrap for opening practice in Saudi Arabia, and Pierre Gasly led the way for Alpine — not a sentence we have been able to say a lot in recent times!
Obviously there are all the caveats of it only being first practice and conditions being very different, but that result will still give Gasly and Alpine a decent confidence boost heading into the rest of the weekend.
He’s followed by the usual suspects of Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri, while Alex Albon is a decent P5 for Williams.
Max Verstappen was on the radio a few times in that session reporting a lack of comfort with his Red Bull car, which isn’t surprising for a first practice but does indicate there is still some work for the team to do ahead of FP2 later today.
That session will provide far more useful information to the teams, as just like Bahrain, only FP2 is scheduled for the same time as the competitive sessions.
By which point, the sun has gone down and things are a little bit cooler out there.