JEDDAH – Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc set the pace ahead of Red Bull’s world champion Max Verstappen in Friday’s opening Formula One practice session for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The Monegasque, who took victory ahead of teammate Carlos Sainz in last week’s season-opening race in Bahrain, lapped the 6.1km Jeddah Corniche track in 1min 30.772 seconds.
Verstappen, who was on course for second place in Bahrain before being sidelined by a fuel system problem three laps from the race’s end, was 0.116 of a second adrift with Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas third. Sainz was fourth.
Reigning champions Mercedes, wrong-footed by the new rules in Bahrain, made another low-key start to the weekend with Lewis Hamilton ninth and George Russell 15th.
The once-dominant squad were running a revised rear wing design aimed at boosting their speed down the straights.
The session was briefly halted when a corner distance marker came loose.
McLaren’s Lando Norris clipped the board, showering debris across the track.
Friday’s opening hour of practice also allowed drivers to familiarize themselves with the changes to the Jeddah track, a challenging layout made up mainly of blind, high-speed sweeps and flat-out blasts along the city’s Red Sea waterfront.
The organizers have made changes to give drivers a better line of sight around the corners after safety concerns last year.
Earlier, Verstappen slammed Netflix docu-series Drive To Survive, accusing the show of an inaccurate portrayal of the sport’s protagonists, including McLaren’s Lando Norris.
The Dutchman has been vocal in his criticism of the show and did not take part in its fourth season, which premiered earlier this month and in large part covers his controversial and heated title battle with Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton.
“It’s just not my thing,” Verstappen told reporters before first practice. “Then of course throughout the whole season they try to pick moments and fabricate it in a way and for me personally what I didn’t like, and it’s not even about me, it was about Lando and (McLaren teammate) Daniel (Ricciardo).
“(They) made it look like Lando was a bit of a dick, which he isn’t at all.
“When you’re new to the sport and you have never seen a racing car or a Formula One car in general, they don’t like him. Why should that be? Because he is a great guy. You just immediately get a wrong picture of a person.”
Reuters has contacted Netflix for comment. Drive To Survive has played a key role in drawing new, younger fans to the sport and has boosted F1’s popularity in the previously hard-to-crack American market. But it has drawn criticism for manufacturing rivalries between drivers and placing conversations and radio comments out of context.
Verstappen’s comments referred to an episode from the show’s fourth season in which Norris says he does not feel sympathy for his well-liked Australian teammate’s struggles with McLaren’s car.
F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali told selected media that he plans to talk to Netflix about keeping their narrative rooted in reality and would also open a dialogue with drivers, reported Motorsport.com.
Verstappen said he was happy to talk to the Italian but his stance was unlikely to change. “I’m someone when you ruin it from the start, you don’t fix it,” said the Red Bull driver.
