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The opening free practice session of the Chinese Grand Prix did not bring much clarity to the upcoming sprint qualifying event. The new format, introduced in 2024, shifted the focus of the Friday practice session to prepare for the sprint race, rather than the main grand prix. As a result, teams experimented with different strategies to assess the track, tires, and their cars before committing to a qualifying setup. This led to an unexpected order, with Lance Stroll from Aston Martin and Oscar Piastri from McLaren occupying the top positions, while Max Verstappen, the current world champion, closely followed. Despite the track being partially resurfaced since it was last used in F1 five years ago, the drivers quickly adapted and encountered minimal issues. A notable incident was a brief red flag caused by a small fire on a patch of grass at Turn 7. Overall, the drivers navigated the challenging Shanghai circuit, occasionally experiencing minor slips and overshooting the pit entry. The session dynamics were heavily influenced by the need for track familiarization, validation of simulation data, fine-tuning of cars, and management of the limited allocation of soft tires for the sprint weekend. Each of the main teams approached the session differently, with Red Bull using a combination of medium and soft tires, Ferrari opting for soft tires throughout, and Mercedes predominantly using hard tires. Although Verstappen initially set the pace using medium tires, the softer compounds and track evolution allowed other drivers to surpass his time. Charles Leclerc, Alex Albon, Piastri, and eventually Stroll took turns at the top of the leaderboard. Lando Norris, despite showing promising pace in the first two sectors, aborted his lap and missed the opportunity to join the leading group. It is worth noting that both Haas drivers performed well with their updated cars, and Esteban Ocon showed potential improvements for Alpine. However, Ferrari and Mercedes did not prioritize a top 10 result in FP1 due to their respective strategies.
