This session has finished. No further updates will be posted.
McLaren appeared to be quick in first practice but with Red Bull and Ferrari hiding their pace it’s impossible to know for sure. Here’s the session report.
FP1 has finished and Lando Norris is fastest. Report to follow.
Hamilton’s tyres weren’t in great shape at the end of the session and he had a double spin at the exit of Mergulho.
Norris pinches the fastest time off his team mate with his final lap by two hundredths of a second.
The chequered flag drops. Verstappen stays 17th ahead of the Ferrari drivers, who only ran on hards.
Red Bull swap him back onto the hards.
But Verstappen backs out of his first lap on softs and heads for the pits.
Verstappen is only the second driver to opt for softs, joining his team mate, so this lap should put him fastest.
Norris improves slightly at the end of the lap but remains second.
Only Verstappen and the Ferrari drivers are yet to run on anything other than hards.
Nico Hulkenberg pops up to third, Bortoleto three places behind him in the other Sauber.
Piastri switches to the mediums and the McLaren comes to life, he bangs in a 1’10.193 which puts him six tenths of a second ahead of Sainz. Norris goes second, 0.278s off his team mate.
Other drivers are opting for mediums. Alexander Albon goes quickest on his with a 1’11.004. Russell takes that off him but then Carlos Sainz Jnr goes even quicker in the other Williams with a 1’10.820.
Tsunoda has rejoined the track on a set of softs after trashing his hards with that early spin.
Looks like Piastri’s tyres are starting to give up. He caught a snap of oversteer in the third part of the Senna ‘S’.
Piastri moves up to third with a 1’11.401, that’s his 15th lap on these hard tyres.
Verstappen runs wide onto the run-off at Descida do Lago, then holds Russell up through Ferradura.
Gasly is much happier with his Alpine on Friday in Brazil than he was in Mexico, saying the car feels more alive than it has for months.
Leclerc goes fastest of all in the middle sector but remains third behind Russell and Verstappen. The fastest McLaren driver, Piastri, is only sixth, with Pierre Gasly and Hamilton ahead of him.
Antonelli very unhappy to find Oliver Bearman and Lewis Hamilton side-by-side at the exit of Descida do Lago.
Russell continues to chip away at his benchmark time, now down to a 1’11.188. Mercedes have been strong on front-limited tracks, so might this prove a strong venue for them?
Russell improves to a 1’11.542. Norris goes second behind him, followed by Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari.
Although the timing tower on the world feed shows Verstappen is on soft tyres, he is in fact on hards like everyone else.
Verstappen briefly goes fastest in the other Red Bull, then George Russell beats his time with a 1’11.861.
Replay shows Tsunoda lost his car on the exit kerb halfway through Descida do Lago and snapped sideways into a spin. He hit the barrier with the front and rear of the car and has returned to the pits.
Yuki Tsunoda has gone off and appeared to have damaged his front-left wing end plate.
Every driver has completed their first lap and Oscar Piastri is quickest with a 1’12.169, followed by Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris.
All the drivers have gone out on the hard tyre compound. Pirelli has selected tyres which are one stage harder than those used last year.
Although the start of practice was delayed the session has not been shortened so drivers should get the full hour of running.
The Mercedes drivers head out first, followed by Liam Lawson. Gabriel Bortoleto, making his debut at home, is the penultimate driver to join the track, followed by Max Verstappen.
The FIA say the start of practice was delayed for track cleaning. Andrea Kimi Antonelli is waiting at the pit lane exit ready to go.
The start of practice has been delayed by five minutes. The Safety Car is out on the track.
The track operators have also etched grooved drainage channels in several places. This session is expected to be dry, there is a slight chance of rain during sprint race qualifying later today and a much higher chance of rain tomorrow when the sprint race and qualifying for the grand prix will take place.
As was also the case last year, large areas of the track have been resurfaced. Several drivers complained about the bumpiness of the track after the 2024 resurfacing so the surface has been re-laid again. This included most of the run from Juncao (the last significant corner) to the Descida do Lago at the end of the back straight, though some of the Senna S has not been resurfaced.
The drivers have just one hour of practice this weekend as this is a sprint event. Qualifying for the sprint race will begin three hours after practice finishes so time is tight.
The free practice session for the 2025 Brazilian Grand Prix is coming up next.
2025 Brazilian Grand Prix
- Verstappen’s car felt like a “pogo stick” as he qualified sixth for sprint race
- Tsunoda denies crash in practice contributed to first-round qualifying exit
- Hamilton faces investigation for “failing to slow under double waved yellow flags” again
- Norris on pole ahead of Antonelli for sprint race, Verstappen sixth
- 2025 Brazilian Grand Prix sprint race grid