George Russell drew first blood at Formula 1’s newest arena, topping opening practice at the Madring in Madrid ahead of Mercedes team-mate and title leader Kimi Antonelli.
A week on from losing out to Antonelli at Monza, Russell arrived in Spain with a point to prove and wasted no time setting the tone. His 0.286s advantage on the soft tyres underlined both his intent and Mercedes’ early grip on a circuit still revealing its secrets.
Mercedes strike early, Ferrari stay close
On a fresh, green track that evolved rapidly, Mercedes bolted on the softs and went hunting for lap time. Russell delivered, Antonelli followed, and the silver cars briefly looked in a class of their own.
Ferrari refused to let them disappear.
Running mediums while Mercedes leaned on the soft compound, Ferrari’s early efforts came within half a second of the benchmark. As the grip improved, Charles Leclerc finally switched to softs and climbed to third, a quietly impressive response given the circumstances.
Leclerc is racing this weekend despite suffering blurred vision after his heavy crash at Monza. Any doubts about his sharpness faded as he pieced together a lap good enough to split the field behind the Mercedes pair.
Lewis Hamilton, by contrast, logged his best time on the mediums and never quite stitched together a clean push lap on the softs. His session became defined less by pace and more by traffic.
Hamilton at the centre of traffic storm
The Madring’s tight confines and high-speed banking produced exactly what drivers feared: traffic chaos.
Hamilton found himself at the centre of it.
Arvid Lindblad was the first to snap, branding Hamilton and Antonelli “stupid” over team radio after both blocked the Racing Bulls rookie through the spectacular, banked Turn 12. The complaints kept coming.
Leclerc, Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg and Williams’ Carlos Sainz all had to abandon flying laps after encountering Hamilton in awkward spots, the seven-time world champion seemingly unaware of cars hurtling towards him.
Sainz’s frustration crackled over the radio: “Lewis letting by in the middle of Turn 12. It’s always the same, it’s so dangerous! Like it takes zero effort to be two metres more left. Zero effort!”
On a day when the barriers stayed mercifully untouched, the most dangerous moments came from misjudged positioning rather than driver error on the limit.
Madring behaves, but the fight at the front is clear
There had been genuine concern that practice could descend into a stop-start mess. A recent two-day Formula 3 test at the Madring produced 19 red flags, raising fears that the new layout might punish even small mistakes.
This time, all 22 F1 drivers kept it out of the wall. No red flags, no major incidents. Just a busy, evolving circuit and a lot of learning.
Track evolution proved huge across the hour, with grip rising quickly and lap times tumbling. Through it all, one pattern emerged: Mercedes and Ferrari look set to trade blows for the top spots this weekend.
“I’m really impressed with the way they approached this brand new circuit,” said Sky Sports F1’s Anthony Davidson. “They made it look easy really – which they often do.”
Easy or not, Russell and Antonelli turned the first session into a Mercedes statement. Ferrari, with Leclerc back in the fight and the car immediately on the pace, sit poised to attack.
Verstappen lurking, Lindblad shines
Behind the Mercedes–Ferrari axis, Max Verstappen quietly slotted his Red Bull into fifth. It wasn’t a headline-grabbing lap, but it kept him within range as the team works to unlock more performance around a track that demands confidence in the high-speed sections.
Lando Norris put McLaren sixth, while Lindblad delivered one of the standout performances of the session. The Racing Bulls rookie grabbed seventh, not just surviving the Madring’s demands but thriving in the chaos of traffic and changing grip.
Audi offered an early hint that they will not simply make up the numbers this weekend. Nico Hulkenberg took ninth, with team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto in 11th, split only by Red Bull’s Liam Lawson in 10th.
The pack behind Mercedes and Ferrari looks tightly wound. One clean lap in qualifying could swing a driver from the fringes of Q1 exit to a spot in the top ten.
For now, though, the story belongs to Russell and Antonelli. One chasing revenge after Monza, the other defending a championship lead. On a brand new circuit, with the walls close and tempers already fraying, their duel is only just warming up.
