The Mexican Sergio ‘Checo’ Perez (Red Bull) led the first free practice session of the 2023 season, free practice 1 of Bahrain Grand Prixwhich Sunday will open the Formula 1 championship on the Sakhir circuit, a track where the Spaniard Charles Sainz (Ferrari) had a big scare and his compatriot Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) finished second.

Season longest in history -23 grands prix- started after the shorter preseason and free practice was like a fourth day of testing that took place at this same track just a week ago.

With 42 degrees of temperature on the track, the Williams cars, with the Thai Alexander Albon at the helm, were the first to leave the garage to inaugurate the new track.

THE Ferrari they chose to initially test different rear wing configurations on the cars of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. They aborted early because the wing of the car that drove the Monegasque, with only one pylon of the anchor, swayed too much, so he switched to what the Madrid-born had, the standard of the preseason.

Sainz he had one of the big scares of the session with 21 minutes to go when he spun high speed into turn nine after noticing something strange on the right rear flatbed. Luckily it didn’t have major consequences for him and he was able to go to the garage. He was last (1:36.072) in a practice in which his teammate finished fifth in a medium compound (1:34.257).

Fernando Alonso dominated the standings at the start of the training session with those same tyres, even if, at the time, far from the test records (1:35.048).

The Mexican Sergio ‘Checo’ Perez he took over (1:34.343) before putting the softs, with which he benchmarked 1:32.758. Alonso, with the same tyres, was less than half a second (1:33.196), second, two tenths ahead of the champion of the last two World Championships, the Dutch Max Verstappen (Red Bull).

The partner of the two-time world champion, the Canadian Throw away Strollhe reappeared having recovered from the wrist injury which forced him to miss pre-season training, although he had some trouble with the Aston Martin which meant he lost pit time in the first part of practice.

Mercedes closed the session in the central area, with the seven-time world champion Lewis Hamiltontenth, e George Russelleleventh.

Like the Silver Arrows, Alpine maintained the discretion of the preseason in free practice 1 of the Bahrain Grand Prix, in which McLaren placed the Briton Lando Norris in the top positions of the standings, fourth (1:34.165), while the Australian Oscar Piastri suffered whiplash and was the protagonist of one of the day’s excursions through the loopholes of Sakhir, where the second free practice session in Argentina took place from noon.