Hamilton heads title rival Verstappen in opening Brazil practice

Hamilton, who will serve a five-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race in Brazil, left it late to hit the top of the timesheets in the only practice session before Friday qualifying with a succession of fastest laps. 

The seven-time world champion initially went 0.069s faster than Verstappen, before extending his advantage to 0.367s with a 1m09.050s on a second timed effort on the soft tyres. 

Verstappen’s best lap was set earlier than Hamilton’s benchmark, while Red Bull appears to hold a significant performance edge in the twisty middle sector. 

But Hamilton’s late fastest laps will act as encouragement to Mercedes after the Briton spend much of the early part of FP1 complaining about the front-end of his W12. 

Sergio Perez was third-quickest for Red Bull, a further tenth behind his teammate Verstappen, while Valtteri Bottas was half a second adrift in fifth. 

Continuing his fine recent form, Pierre Gasly was fifth in his AlphaTauri as the only other driver to get within a second of Hamilton’s marker. 

The Ferrari duo of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc were split by just 0.018s in sixth and seventh, ahead of Alpine pairing Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso. 

Lance Stroll completed the top 10 for Aston Martin, while McLaren were the only team not to run on the soft tyres as Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo took 15th and 19th. 

With F1’s sprint format returning for the third and final time this weekend at Interlagos, qualifying will take place at 4pm local time (7pm GMT) on Friday evening. =

Full results from opening practice at the 2021 F1 Sao Paulo Grand Prix.