eorge Russell produced a final flying lap to beat Lewis Hamilton to the top of the timesheets in first practice on Friday for this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen had dominated the hour-long session until the final minute when Hamilton and then Russell catapulted him for a Mercedes one-two at the top of the order.
Mercedes had been well off the pace for much of the 60 minutes as they tested out various changes on the W14.
Russell earned an early setback when reporting vibration issues, which brought him back into the pits for a change of steering rack, which had been trialled as part of a minor upgrade on his Mercedes.
He was then languishing at the bottom of the timesheets in 18th, a spot above Hamilton before their flying laps at the death, Russell’s two tenths of a second quicker than that of his more experienced teammate with a best lap of 1:30.125.
Charles Leclerc also catapulted past Verstappen in the times, the defending champion having to make do with fourth at the end of FP1 As Carlos Sainz rounded off the top five.
The hour-long session had to be red flagged when Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg blocked the track after crashing around the midway point. It brought a 10-minute break to proceedings before the session resumed for its second half.
