Brazil – Free Practice 1: Albon, at the end of the rain and before the wall!

The weekend of the Brazilian Grand Prix begins very calmly at the Interlagos circuit, which is soaked with torrents of rain expected to last all day, thus hindering these first two practice sessions.

This does not prevent a brave Sebastian Vettel from taking to the track fitted with rain tires under the applause of the large crowd present. They will also be able to observe Charles Leclerc in the other Ferrari and Kimi Räikkönen with his Alfa Romeo, both of whom followed Vettel onto the track to complete an installation lap and a practice start at the exit of the pit lane.

Finally, all the other drivers take their time but nonetheless go out on the track for a reconnaissance lap, like Nicholas Latifi, who is taking Robert Kubica’s place for this session.

The rain stops, the exit intermediaries!

It takes more than 20 minutes to see a brave driver set the first time on the timing sheet. It’s Carlos Sainz with a 1:23.689 followed by an improvement to 1:22.149, marking the first “benchmark” of the day at the wheel of his McLaren.

We have to wait another 15 minutes before a second driver sets a time. Charles Leclerc, on a track that’s slightly drying out, takes the lead with a time of 1:21.259 despite some slides in the final climb to the finish line.

This is the point in the session when the drivers choose to switch to Intermediate tires to really start attacking their program, and the lap times quickly drop to easily go below the one minute and 20-second mark.

Things are getting frantic in the last quarter hour.

Under less extreme conditions, the regulars are leading the pack with a provisional best time by Valtteri Bottas at 1:16.693, 30 minutes before the end of the session. The Finn is ahead of Vettel, Leclerc, Sainz, Nico Hülkenberg, Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly, Daniil Kvyat, Lando Norris, and a surprising George Russell who complete a Top 10 missing a few big names like the two Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Alex Albon or Lewis Hamilton, who did not find it necessary to set a time before the last quarter-hour of the session when DRS is finally allowed.

This is the ideal moment chosen by Alex Albon to string together the best laps and set the definitive time of 1.16.142, which remained the fastest. Despite the outings of both Ferraris, both Red Bulls, and both Mercedes with dry weather tires, the wet zones remain very treacherous. Max Verstappen makes a mistake in the Senna S without damage, unlike Alex Albon, who loses control of his car in the last corner and crashes into the barriers, causing a red flag and ending the session 4 minutes early.

The complete ranking of FP1:

I am on:

🔘 Slick tyres
⚪️ Intermediates
⚪️ Wet tyres

I am looking for:
🔘 Grip
🔘 The dry line
⚪️ Standing water#BrazilGP 🇧🇷 #F1 pic.twitter.com/vqLK6oJSnh

— Formula 1 (@F1) November 15, 2019