Carlos Sainz topped the timesheets in the first and only practice session for this weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix, with the Ferrari driver leading team mate Charles Leclerc and Mercedes’ George Russell.

Due to the final Sprint event of the season taking place on Saturday, today’s FP1 offered the teams and drivers their last chance to finalise their set-ups and carry out any final preparations before qualifying later today.

As such, it was a busy hour at the Interlagos circuit. The session got underway in warm and dry conditions and Max Verstappen was amongst those ready to get going, with the world champion leading the queue of drivers in the pit lane waiting for the green light to show.

All cars were running the hard tyre in their opening laps. There seemed to be trouble for Esteban Ocon, who reported a sideways screw on his front tyre. Meanwhile Verstappen – who was quick to set the early pace – explained that his seat was flexing, though was reassured by race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase that it was not a reliability concern.

Sainz was the first to have a slight wobble after 10 minutes of running, with the Ferrari losing the rear after taking too much kerb. The Scuderia weren’t quite matching the pace of Red Bull and Mercedes, as Verstappen and Sergio Perez led the way in the early stages from Lewis Hamilton and Russell, but the Italian team put an extensive amount of laps in during the session as they looked to address their tyre wear issues.