The pack set off en masse at the start of the one-hour session – the teams’ only chance to prepare ahead of Friday’s qualifying session and the two races ahead.
All cars ran on medium tires in the early stages, with Alpine’s Fernando Alonso setting first in 1m09.438s.
This was soon beaten by Verstappen’s 1m08.656s and Kevin Magnussen’s 1m08.501s before the former established himself as the leader of the yellow-walled complex.
In an extended run of 12 laps, Verstappen recorded a run of fastest times, with his 1m07.720s completing the first five minutes.
After pulling back, Verstappen was initially unable to go faster, but after another period of slow laps he was able to go faster again at 1m07.496s.
Just after Leclerc clocked in with a 1m08.064s that put him 0.5s clear of his title rival, the session was halted due to Norris pulling off the side of the track at Turn 6 – the long and sweeping left-hander at the end of the track’s second sector.
Norris, who reported that his engine was running in “loose home mode” during the early laps, reported smoke coming from under his seat and so decided to stop and jump out of his MCL36 – with the Briton failing to reappear in FP1 .
The session was halted for nearly 10 minutes before the Ferrari duo switched to software and qualifying simulations midway through the session.
Silverstone winner Sainz used his first lap on the red-walled tire to overtake Verstappen in 1m07.149s, before Leclerc, who was running seconds behind his team-mate, took him back to second with a 1m06.650s.
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari F1-75
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Verstappen was the third driver to appear on soft shortly after the Ferrari team and he then moved back to the front with a 1m06.302s which saw a big gain on Leclerc in the opening sector, a more modestly faster time in the second sector and after this Verstappen falls back slightly by the end of the lap.
A few minutes later, nearing the 40-minute mark of the session, Verstappen set a second flyer on the same set of softs, coming in 0.1 seconds slower than his personal best, with several other cars yet to make the move mixture.
The session was then interrupted by a second red flag as a rubber strip was spotted located just off the racing line on the exit of Turn 6, meaning a further six minutes were lost until it was removed and the cars returned to the pits.
As the final quarter of the session got under way as the red flag period came to an end, the rest of the pack were finally able to complete their runs on soft tyres, with Sergio Perez the first to do so in the second Red Bull.
The Mexican driver, who asked his team to quickly change his settings “in the other direction” after the early laps, finished fourth but was almost a second slower than his team-mate.
Consequently, Perez was relegated as others improved, with Lewis Hamilton overtaking Sainz to take third – 0.607 seconds behind Verstappen’s leading time – as the final 10 minutes of the session approached.
Russell then overtook his team-mate to take third in 1m06.776s, which was 0.474s slower than Verstappen as Magnussen also passed Sainz with a flyer just inside the final 10 minutes.
In the closing moments, Perez, who had improved with a second run on the soft that still left him 0.830s behind. behind his team-mate, leapt to fourth in 1min 06.838sec, which followed Leclerc closing the gap on Verstappen at the head of the field with a last-ditch effort in the dying moments of FP1.
Leclerc’s lap improved his personal best to 1m06.557s, which meant he was 0.255s behind.
Perez’s late improvement meant Hamilton, who was late at the first corner during the final laps, finished fifth ahead of Magnussen, Sainz and Alonso.
Mick Schumacher took ninth in the second Haas, while Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top 10.
McLaren’s difficult session was compounded by Daniel Ricciardo’s car having a recurring DRS problem which meant his rear wing flap wobbled abnormally at top speed, as had been the case with Red Bull at several events earlier in the season .
McLaren tried to fix the problem, but Ricciardo wasn’t sure he had done so until the final minutes, where he achieved his personal best – on medium tires – which put him 17th on the grid.
This was just before Zhou Guanyu reappeared straight after his Silverstone crash, Nicholas Latifi and Norris.
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