The Mercedes driver traded times with Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel before establishing himself at the head of the order with two laps good enough to end the session quickest. Bottas was left out of the car in the final half hour, though, as Mercedes stripped down his W10 to understand what was initially described as a hydraulic problem. Mercedes determined an oil leak had caused a precautionary engine shutdown, which it is investigating the cause of. The second Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton ended FP1 fourth fastest, half a second adrift after complaining of "terrible" tyre preparation. Vettel set the early pace on soft tyres and topped the times at the midway stage of the session on a 1m18.407s. Bottas was more than a second slower at this point but had only run the medium tyres, and immediately usurped Vettel once he bolted on softs with just over half an hour of the session left. He initially set a 1m17.990s, the first sub-1m18s lap of the day, and then improved on the same set of tyres after a cool-down lap to end up on a 1m17.951s. No other driver set a 1m17s lap, although both Ferraris finished within two tenths of Bottas. Leclerc initially moved himself ahead of Vettel thanks to a 1m18.172s lap and his teammate botching his first flier during the second set of runs. Vettel caught traffic in the final sector and ran wide, dipping his left wheels into the gravel, as he cleared a slower car on the outside exiting the long uphill Turn 12 right-hander. However, after a cool-down lap, Vettel was able to push again and re-established himself as the lead Ferrari on a 1m18.066s. Hamilton's session was understated, and included him falling to the foot of the times briefly after failing to set a competitive effort on medium tyres in the first half of FP1. He bemoaned his rear tyres being "done" after a mediocre flying lap on softs that left him 0.6s slower than Bottas. The Red Bulls did not feature in their usual position between Mercedes, Ferrari and the rest of the field after avoiding using soft tyres. Pierre Gasly was the lead Red Bull representative in eighth, 1.3s off the pace, while Max Verstappen was only 12th and 0.6s slower. Like Bottas, Verstappen ended his session early as Red Bull assessed an unknown problem on his RB15. Red Bull's tyre strategy opened the door for Romain Grosjean to end FP1 fifth fastest as Haas seeks to respond to its poor start to the season at a more favourable circuit. Grosjean beat the McLaren of Carlos Sainz to best-of-the-rest honours in first practice by 0.2s. Kevin Magnussen was 0.025s slower than Sainz in the second Haas, while behind Gasly the top 10 was completed by Daniil Kvyat's Toro Rosso and Renault driver Nico Hulkenberg. Beyond a minor early run-in between Bottas and Verstappen, who caught the Mercedes while on a flying lap and gesticulated at the points leader, the session was almost completed without major incident. That was until Lance Stroll crashed his Racing Point with just over a minute left to run. Stroll had a wobble on the entry to Turn 9 and locked up a front wheel as he corrected it, which sent him straight on and into the barriers nose first. He emerged unharmed, although the front of his car picked up a significant damage, and the session ended under red flags.<doc-sep>Red Bull has changed the Honda power unit on Max Verstappen’s car ahead of schedule following an oil leak during opening practice for the Spanish Grand Prix on Friday. Verstappen was forced to miss the second half of FP1 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya as a result of the oil leak, leaving him playing catch-up heading into the remainder of the race weekend. Red Bull had planned to update to the Spec 2 Honda power unit on both Verstappen and teammate Pierre Gasly’s cars ahead of Free Practice 3 on Saturday in Barcelona, but has now opted to fast-track Verstappen’s update for FP2. “We’ve now changed the power unit on Max’s car following the oil leak that occurred during FP1,” Honda F1 chief Toyoharu Tanabe said. “Both cars started FP1 with Spec 1 power units with a plan of changing them for Spec 2 tonight. Therefore Max’s power unit change has happened just one session earlier than planned. “Pierre continues to use the Spec 1 power unit for FP2, and his power unit will be switched to Spec 2 tonight, as per the original plan. “Further investigation on the cause of the oil leak will now be carried out.”<doc-sep>The Dutchman had started the day with the Spec 1 unit that he used in the first three grands prix of the season. It was replaced by the latest Spec 2 for the Baku weekend, but retained for Friday practice use, as it still had plenty of mileage left on it. The team had planned to switch both Verstappen and teammate Pierre Gasly to the Baku Spec 2 units from Saturday morning in Spain, so in the former's case it has happened one session early. The potential problem for Red Bull Racing is that the oil leak could be a sign of a serious issue that means that Verstappen's Spec 1 engine is no longer usable. If that proves to be the case, it might have to be dropped from the pool earlier than planned, thus potentially edging Verstappen closer to penalties later in the season. "We've now changed the PU on Max's car following the oil leak that occurred during FP1," said Honda F1 boss Toyoharu Tanabe. "Both cars started FP1 with Spec 1 PUs with a plan of changing them for Spec 2 tonight, therefore Max's PU change has happened just one session earlier than planned. "Pierre continues to use the spec 1 PU for FP2 and his PU will be switched to Spec 2 tonight, as per the original plan. Further investigation on the cause of the oil leak will now be carried out."<doc-sep>The Briton's Williams ran over a loose manhole cover on the run down to Turn 3, briefly lifting into the air and shedding debris all over the track. "I just hit it and got the biggest smack through my body," Russell explained to Sky Sports afterwards. "I was just going down the straight on my normal line." As Russell pulled over on the exit of Turn 3, the session was red-flagged for his FW42 to be extricated, while track workers attempted to force the manhole cover back in its place. However, the session was not restarted when Russell's car returned to the pits, and with it understood that the circuit inspectors now need to check over 300 manhole covers around the track surface, FP1 was duly abandoned. Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams described the situation as "not acceptable", telling Sky Sports: "It's not what you would expect from a Formula 1 circuit, the drain covers are supposed to be welded down. We'll be taking that up with race control." Russell's FW42 was caught up in another incident as it returned to the pitlane on the recovery truck, as the crane that had extricated it made contact with a bridge and was damaged, spilling liquid onto the F1 car sat on its flatbed. All teams but Mercedes had completed at least an installation lap in the first 10 minutes of FP1, while the two Ferrari drivers were the only ones to set timed laps. Charles Leclerc recorded the fastest time on the medium tyre, a 1m47.597s, two seconds quicker than teammate Sebastian Vettel.<doc-sep>
Barcelona FP1: Bottas ahead with Ferrari in the hunt Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas topped the timing screens at the end of the first free practice of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, edging both Ferrari’s in the 90-minutes session which ended when Lance Stroll crashed his Racing Point in Turn 9. It was also a morning in which Honda power did not ‘show up’ and their star driver Max Verstappen spent half the time in the Red Bull pit garage with issues. Bottas set a best lap time of 1:17.951 which was good enough for the top time of the morning session, a tenth faster than the next best and six tenths up on his teammate Lewis Hamilton in fourth. Ferrari were the meat in the Silver Arrows sandwich with Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc ending second and third respectively. The gap between them about a tenth of a second. The Italian team have a fast-tracked an update on their power unit for this weekend but reports indicate that they did not run the new package in FP1. Romain Grosjean made good use of a “nearly all new car” to clock the fifth best time, a tad under a second shy of the top time suggesting impressive progress by Haas with their second spec car. In the sister car, Kevin Magnussen ran the older-spec chassis as a deliberate back-to-back test. He ended the session in seventh albeit three tenths down on his teammate. The American team is sure to bolt the new bits onto the Dane’s car for the afternoon session. Local hero Carlos Sainz was sixth in the McLaren, fastest of the Renault quartet but 1.2 seconds down on the benchmark pace, but nine-tenths up on teammate Lando Norris down in 16th. Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly was fastest of the Honda-powered posse but a massive 1.3 seconds off Bottas’ effort. Daniil Kvyat in the Toro Rosso was ninth, under a tenth of a second down on the Frenchman. Alex Albon was 15th, seven tenths down on his teammate. Coupled to Verstappen’s limited running, this is not the kind of start to the weekend that the energy drinks organisation was hoping for, unless Honda have a plan of course. Underachieving again were the Renault pair with Nico Hulkenberg in tenth and Daniel Ricciardo ninth but 1.5 seconds adrift of the pace. McLaren confirmed during the session that both cars were running the upgraded Renault PU, while the works team confirmed that only Ricciardo used the updated engine in FP1.