Charles Leclerc cited for 'dangerous' move as Pierre Gasly stuns F1 field

Pierre Gasly surprised F1 by posting the fastest time in first practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

For a lengthy period around the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, it appeared as if one of the McLaren duo of Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri, or Mercedes' George Russell, would lead the way as they all topped the timesheet at various stages throughout.

With Norris out front with a soft-tyre lap of 1:29.246s, Alpine's Gasly popped in a time 0.007s quicker than the Briton to oust him from top spot.

It is the first time Gasly has topped a session since he did so in final practice for last year's Dutch Grand Prix, underlining the pace in his car at present after he qualified sixth for last weekend's race in Bahrain.

Given the high-speed nature of the track, with its walls looming large, it proved to be a relatively uneventful session bar a moment that had the hairs on the back of Carlos Sainz's neck standing on end.

On a flying soft-tyre lap, Sainz came across the slower Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who opted to pull to one side to allow the Spaniard by on a part of the track that caught the Williams driver unaware.

Sainz immediately radioed over to the team that Leclerc's move was "dangerous", and for them to inform Ferrari to let their driver know he should not perform such a manoeuvre on that part of the circuit again.

Verstappen moans again

As with last weekend's first practice session for the Bahrain Grand Prix, the conditions were unrepresentative of those the drivers face in qualifying and the race.

With an air temperature of 28 degrees Celsius in the late afternoon, track temperature started at 50, dropping to 43 by the end of the hour-long run.

The medium-compound Pirelli tyre was the overwhelming rubber of choice over the opening laps as the drivers obtained sighters around a circuit that Haas driver Esteban Ocon declared that "insane risk" was required to handle it.

Piastri set the early pace with a lap of 1:31.548s before exchanging the lead time with Norris and Russell in the following 20 minutes until the latter emerged with the benchmark time of 1:29.674s.

Approaching the halfway mark, the teams turned to the soft tyre, with Sainz posting a time still 0.245s adrift of Russell on the medium. Sainz at least declared himself happy with his car at high speed, stating it felt "more alive".

Piastri's opener on the softs was also shy of Russell by 0.034s before Norris showed the Australian the way as he surged to the top of the timesheet with a 1:29.246s.

On a follow-up attempt, Piastri at least closed the gap to Norris to 0.187s until Gasly popped in his lap out of the blue to usurp Norris by seven-thousandths of a second.

Leclerc had an opportunity to swiftly depose Gasly after setting the fastest middle sector, but missed out by 0.070s.

On his second attempt, the minor errors which Norris feels have undermined him this season reared again as he made a slight error out of the high-speed Turn 1, forcing him to take to the immediate Turn 2 run-off, compromising his lap.

Norris had to settle for second quickest behind Gasly, with Leclerc and Piastri also within a tenth of a second of the Frenchman.

Russell, whose best soft tyre lap was only marginally quicker than that on the medium, finished sixth, and effectively the filling in a Williams sandwich as Alex Albon and Sainz were on either side of him.

Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton was eighth, over half a second adrift of Gasly, with a complaining Max Verstappen ninth. The four-time F1 champion again bemoaned issues with his RB21, notably that it could not turn on occasion, and with the balance.

Team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was at least in close attendance, the Japanese driver 10th fastest, 0.003s behind the Dutchman.

Bottom of the pile was Stake's Gabriel Bortoleto, 1.799s off the pace.