Pierre Gasly was the pacesetter as the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix race weekend got underway on Friday.

It was a very congested scene at the top, with Gasly’s 1:29.239 clearing Norris by just seven-thousandths of a second, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc slotting into P3, 0.07s off Gasly’s time.

Pierre Gasly kicks-off Saudi Arabian GP with a P1

The opening session of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix took place under the sweltering sunlight, before the floodlights would take over later in the day.

And unlike in FP1 last weekend in Bahrain, there was not a rookie to be seen, with all 20 full-time drivers in action from the start.

And it did not take long for Kimi Antonelli to report a “massive vibration on the brake”, giving Mercedes some early investigating to do, while Bahrain GP winner Piastri had a leaking drinks bottle.

Norris’ 1:31.887 on the mediums was the first benchmark for the pack to chase, as the qualifying simulations quickly got going.

McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari were among the teams to introduce updates for their respective challengers this weekend, while Sauber had made the most alterations with five in total.

Piastri only was running the upgraded McLaren diffuser and altered rear brake duct winglet arrangement, while at Red Bull, both Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda were armed with the new beam wing and enlarged central exit for the coke/engine cover.

10 minutes into the session and George Russell had improved to P1 with a 1:30.425, Mercedes the only top-four team in the championship to opt against any updates for the race weekend.

Oliver Bearman’s quest to get on the pace featured a hairy moment down at Turn 1 as he locked-up, clipped the wall and took to the run-off. Thankfully it was a case of almost no harm done, with the Pirelli tyres and front wing endplate wounded. Piastri also found himself getting a little too close to the wall.

More from the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

👉 Uncovered: Intricate tech secrets on display at Saudi Arabian GP

👉 Our bold predictions for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

The order at the top kept evolving as drivers unlocked more and more pace, but Russell continued to hold P1 on an improved 1:29.674 by the halfway mark, the medium tyres still the compound in demand.

But now, the Pirelli softs were coming out to play, and Norris comfortably got the best of those opening push laps, clocking a 1:29.246 to go just under four-tenths clear of Norris out front. Piastri was another tenth further back.

Verstappen reported that he “just can’t turn the car” through the opening two corners as he sat P5, just shy of six-tenths off Norris’ pace.

Piastri enjoyed a better run the next time around, but was forced to settle for P2, as he narrowed Norris’ advantage to two-tenths and established a McLaren one-two.

The Woking squad soon had fresh competition at the top though as Gasly shot up to P1, a mere 0.007s faster than Norris, who required the refuge of the Turn 1/2 run-off as he tried to respond.

By this stage, the top three of Gasly, Norris and Leclerc were covered by just seven-hundredths.

Sainz would be spooked by a Ferrari going through the high-speed sweeps between Turns 4 to 12, urging someone to tell his former team to be careful about where they get out of the way. Re-charging the battery pack was also proving a spikey topic.

Told by his race engineer that this was not needed, Sainz broke out his best Kimi Raikkonen impression with an “I know what I’m doing” comeback.

Liam Lawson, meanwhile, landed a post-session date with the stewards over twice entering the painted area between the pit entry and the track, while Verstappen had “no balance” to act on his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase’s suggestion of an alternate approach to Turn 13.

Gasly would hold on to top FP1 from Norris and Leclerc.

Full FP1 timesheet to follow…