MADRID — George Russell set the pace in first practice for Formula 1's inaugural Spanish Grand Prix at Madrid's new Madring and warned the circuit "has less margin than Monaco," despite the walls appearing closer in the Principality. The Mercedes driver, who trails team-mate Kimi Antonelli by 66 points in the drivers' championship, led an incident-free opening session on Friday with a lap 0.286 seconds clear of Antonelli in second.
"In Monaco, the walls are closer, but because you're going far slower, if you make a mistake, you're not into the wall as quickly, and you can recover it sometimes, a small lock-up," Russell said a couple of hours before the session. A few drivers brushed the wall during the hour, including Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton and Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso, but no-one damaged their car.
Russell said the danger at the Madring — a street-circuit style track built around an exhibition centre near the Spanish capital's airport — comes from high-speed corners where the barrier angles back toward the racing line. "There's a lot of really fast corners, but the barrier is kind of like coming back onto the track," he said. "So, if you are to go wide and hit the wall, you're not hitting it kind of at the same angle as the car is going. The wall is sort of coming in at you." He singled out Turns Five, Seven and 17, where Hamilton's team-mate Charles Leclerc went off into the run-off area, adding: "You've got three corners where you're turning and braking, and if you lock up, the wall is right in front of you, which is very reminiscent of the corner in Baku - Turn 15." Russell also likened a section of high-speed swerves to the fast Jeddah street track in Saudi Arabia and predicted "a lot of lock-ups" without necessarily major crashes.
Ferrari had set the pace on the medium tyres in the first part of Friday's opening session but could not match Mercedes on the soft compound. Leclerc ended third, 0.459secs off Russell and just ahead of Hamilton in fourth, with Red Bull's Max Verstappen fifth and McLaren's Lando Norris sixth. Racing Bulls' Arvid Lindblad, McLaren's Oscar Piastri, Audi's Nico Hulkenberg and Red Bull's Liam Lawson completed the top 10.