Lewis Hamilton finished on top of the time charts at the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in the first free practice session. Hamilton pipped his title-rival Max Verstappen by just 0.056 seconds.
Valtteri Bottas was in third position, 0.223 seconds behind Hamilton. The first-ever practice session at this new venue was incident-free as the Formula 1 drivers had the measure of the track.
The first session at this newly-added race on the Formula 1 calendar took place at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The track is located in Corniche, a 30 kilometer-long stretch of a coastal resort in the city of Jeddah. The track is estimated to have an average speed of 252 km/h. This is second only in speed to Monza in Italy, the “temple of speed”, on the F1 calendar.
The track has 27 corners and is a superfast flowing track. It is a temporary street circuit with the barriers close to the track. The drivers negotiated the first session without any major incidents.
The sixty-minute long first free practice session started at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit with air temperatures at 28.4 degrees C and track temperatures at 36 degrees C. The humidity was very high as the session started at the local time of 4:30pm.
The Pirelli tyre choice at this race is the white-striped hard compound tyres (C2), yellow-striped medium compound tyres (C3), and red-striped soft compound tyres (C4), the middle range of compounds in the Pirelli tyre range.
Verstappen was immediately on track on the hard compound tyres and went to the top of the time charts. The Dutchman kept going faster with every lap and was the first driver to get into the 1m30s with a lap time of 1m30.014s.
The two Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team drivers went out on the soft compound tyres and took much longer to get the quick lap times. Behind Verstappen, Pierre Gasly and Lando Norris took turns to take second position.
It was on the second run on the soft compound tyres that Hamilton went fastest with a lap time of 1m29.786s. Bottas slotted into second position, just 0.223 seconds slower.
Verstappen initially found it difficult to find the right balance on the soft compound tyres before we went second fastest in the dying minutes of the session, just 0.056 seconds slower than Hamilton.
As the track temperatures dropped the lap times kept improving. The dusty track rubbered in and the drivers had a relatively incident free session.
Gasly had a good session and finished in fourth position ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi. The two Scuderia Ferrari drivers, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc finished in sixth and seventh positions.
The McLaren F1 team drivers, Daniel Ricciardo and Norris could only finish in seventh and thirteenth positions.
Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel rounded off the top ten positions. The second free practice session will have more representative track temperatures in terms of the qualification and the race.
2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix FP1 Results:
| Pos | No | Driver | Nat. | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
| 1 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | GBR | Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team | 1:29.786 | 21 | |
| 2 | 33 | Max Verstappen | NED | Red Bull Racing | 1:29.842 | +0.056s | 23 |
| 3 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | FIN | Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team | 1:30.009 | +0.223s | 24 |
| 4 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | FRA | Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda | 1:30.263 | +0.477s | 28 |
| 5 | 99 | Antonio Giovinazzi | ITA | Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN | 1:30.318 | +0.532s | 27 |
| 6 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | ESP | Scuderia Ferrari | 1:30.564 | +0.778s | 26 |
| 7 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | MON | Scuderia Ferrari | 1:30.600 | +0.814s | 26 |
| 8 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | AUS | McLaren F1 Team | 1:30.608 | +0.822s | 25 |
| 9 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | ESP | Alpine F1 Team | 1:30.842 | +1.056s | 27 |
| 10 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | GER | Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team | 1:30.886 | +1.100s | 25 |
| 11 | 11 | Sergio Perez | MEX | Red Bull Racing | 1:30.960 | +1.174s | 27 |
| 12 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | FRA | Alpine F1 Team | 1:31.023 | +1.237s | 29 |
| 13 | 4 | Lando Norris | GBR | McLaren F1 Team | 1:31.029 | +1.243s | 23 |
| 14 | 18 | Lance Stroll | CAN | Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team | 1:31.044 | +1.258s | 25 |
| 15 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | JAP | Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda | 1:31.099 | +1.313s | 26 |
| 16 | 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | FIN | Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN | 1:31.296 | +1.510s | 26 |
| 17 | 63 | George Russell | GBR | Williams Racing | 1:31.343 | +1.557s | 28 |
| 18 | 47 | Mick Schumacher | GER | Uralkali Haas F1 Team | 1:31.525 | +1.739s | 24 |
| 19 | 6 | Nicholas Latifi | CAN | Williams Racing | 1:31.821 | +2.035s | 27 |
| 20 | 9 | Nikita Mazepin | RAF | Uralkali Haas F1 Team | 1:33.464 | +3.678s | 23 |
