The Monegasque driver initially settled in behind Lando Norris, who set an early benchmark on the medium compound with a time of 1m 25.020s, with everyone fighting through traffic to clock their first fast laps.
As the session marched on, the Ferrari versus McLaren battle that the sport has become accustomed to this season continued to ramp up as Norris, Sainz, Leclerc and Piastri all jostled for top spot on the timesheets.
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Meanwhile, this year’s champion Verstappen suffered a messy lap that saw him rattle over the kerbs – Alpine’s Jack Doohan also appeared to struggle at times, locking up his tyres as he continues his first full race weekend.
In the last half of practice, the drivers took advantage of the cooling track temperatures to carry out some qualifying simulation laps, with Norris coming out on top with a lap time of 1m 23.517s ahead of team mate Piastri and high-flying Haas driver Hulkenberg.