Sergio Perez narrowly set the pace during Friday’s first practice session for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, ahead of Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc and Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen, as the third and final F1 Sprint weekend of the season got under way.

Given the Sprint format, FP1 took on greater importance than the usual Friday programme, with only 60 minutes available for teams to understand and fine-tune their cars ahead of qualifying at the technical Interlagos circuit.

After drivers spent the early stages gathering data on the hard and medium tyre compounds – Verstappen leading with a hard-shod time of 1m 13.575s – the first sets of softs appeared close to the halfway mark, leading to a flurry of improvements.

In the closing minutes of the session, Leclerc would pip the struggling Verstappen by 0.004s to split the Red Bulls, after Ferrari made a late switch to the soft tyres – Carlos Sainz taking fourth, just under two-tenths back.

Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were both within a whisker of Sainz in P5 and P6 respectively, despite Hamilton stating that it “feels like the rear is just floating around” and locking up at the start of his soft tyre run.

Sebastian Vettel put his Aston Martin seventh as his F1 retirement draws ever closer, as Haas driver Mick Schumacher, the Alfa Romeo of Valtteri Bottas and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly rounded out the top 10 positions.

Alpine pair Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon made a low-key start to the weekend in respective P11 and P13 spots – neither Alpine nor rivals McLaren running soft tyres in the session – sandwiching Williams man Alex Albon, with the other Aston Martin of Lance Stroll 14th after reporting technical issues.