The China Mail - Leclerc on top for Ferrari but suffers car failure

The Monegasque driver, who rediscovered his form with a victory at the British Grand Prix three weeks ago, clocked a best time of one minute and 19.075 seconds to beat the four-time champion by 0.484 seconds.

But his session ended with him back in the Ferrari garage after an apparent power failure on track in the closing minutes.

Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton was third in the second Ferrari, five-tenths adrift of his team-mate’s pace with Isack Hadjar fourth in the second Red Bull ahead of a revived George Russell for McLaren.

In the absence of championship leader Kimi Antonelli, whose Mercedes was occupied for the session by reserve driver Fred Vesti, Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto was sixth ahead of Vesti, Nico Hulkenberg in the second Audi and the two Racing Bulls.

World champion Lando Norris was 11th for McLaren after abandoning a fast lap while two-time champion Fernando Alonso was 13th in his heavily-updated Aston Martin.

The session began with all eyes on Aston Martin to see how much performance they could gain with their very substantial upgrade package, with 16 different parts registered as new by the team.

Haas, Audi and Cadillac were also introducing revisions rear wing parts and brake ducts while Red Bull, Williams, Mercedes had smaller updates and McLaren were testing a new rear wing and floor.

Five rookie test drivers were also taking part with Leonardo Fornaroli in for Oscar Piastri at McLaren, Frederik Vesti for Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes, Paul Aron for Franco Colapinto at Alpine, Ryo Hirawaka for Oliver Bearman at Haas and Colton Herta for Valtteri Bottas at Cadillac.

After an early pace-setting lap from Verstappen, Ferrari took control with Leclerc leading the way and Hamilton, although second, grumbling about his car’s ‘ride’ on a circuit where he has an opportunity to be the first man to take 10 poles at a single track.

The teams switched to softs after 30 minutes with Russell going top for Mercedes before being outpaced by Verstappen and then Leclerc in 1:19.075, four-tenths clear of the Red Bull with Hamilton third, half a second adrift.

A red flag halted the action after 38 minutes when Lance Stroll came to a halt at Turn Three with what appeared to be a suspension failure on the new Aston Martin.

That grim news for a worried-looking Adrian Newey, the team’s boss and technical chief, was followed by Leclerc crawling back to the Ferrari pits.

Given the number of problems, changes, sliding cars and difficult wind gusts on a dust-strewn track it was little surprise that the session was scruffy and disjointed. “Oh, no, something has broken,” was Leclerc’s verdict while Hamilton reported: “My car feels really bad.”

N.Lo--ThChM