With clear skies and warm temperatures, Robert Kubica, who ran for Alfa Romeo instead of Kimi Räikkönen for the first race, set the first P1 benchmark of 1: 27.006 seconds on the hard tires.
But Kubica was downgraded almost immediately from Bottas’ 1m21.899s, which were also on the white-walled rubber.
Shortly after Nikita Mazepin lost the tail of his Haas as he accelerated left out of fast Turn 7 and turned left before reaching the curbs of uphill Turn 8 to the right, Hamilton took over the lead.
His 1: 21.014 minutes were also tough and beat the time until, a few minutes later, Verstappen set his fastest opening lap on the same site – 1: 20.405 seconds.
The championship leaders continued their long opening run but were briefly set to lead the time by Fernando Alonsos 1: 19.950 minutes just after the 10-minute mark of the session.
Alonso’s time was set on the soft tires but didn’t stay the benchmark as long as Hamilton’s tough tire run included a faster lap moments later – a time of 1: 19.675 seconds.
After a break in the action until half-time, Sebastian Vettel was the fastest with 1: 19.234 seconds when the majority of the pack switched to soft tires.
Hamilton’s first lap on the softs brought the Brit back to first place with 1: 18.808 seconds, while Bottas had to finish his first run with the red-walled tires by sliding far through the long right corner 3.
But his second time brought him to just 0.030 seconds behind his teammate before Hamilton improved again with 1: 18.627 seconds.
After a drive through the pits Bottas was ahead of Hamilton with a time of 1: 18.504 minutes. This was the best time of the session in the second sector at the time, with Hamilton going slower than his personal best on his fastest lap, although he remained the fastest in the first and last segments.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB16B
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
The Red Bull cars had stayed in their garages for much of the middle part of the session, and the team lost more track time when the session was red flagged 15 minutes from the end after Kubica drove the rear of Raikkonen’s Alfa through the Lost Reprofil Take a long 10 left turn.
Kubica spun backwards and was stranded in the gravel around the corner, which meant his car had to be cranked away and the clock wiped off for almost 10 minutes during the recovery.
When the session resumed just under 10 minutes before the end, the Red Bull drivers appeared on the softs for the first time.
Perez led the pack around when the session resumed, but his time ended way down on Bottas while Verstappen had to abandon his first flight lap after traffic.
After reassuring him that he had the battery charge required to try again on the next lap, despite being warned that his tires were hotter than ideal because he was effectively doing an extra warm-up lap, Verstappen drove again.
He met Bottas in the first two sectors and landed 0.033 seconds slower, but seemed to be losing time in Turn 10 and hitting the curbs hard in the last chicane.
Verstappen still finished second to split the Mercedes pair. Hamilton was 0.123 seconds slower than Bottas.
Lando Norris’ soft tire lap just before the red flag kept him fourth, 0.440 seconds behind Bottas, and the McLaren driver was followed by the two Ferrari cars.
Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
The Scuderia deviates from the rest of the field by running the middle tires after the early work on the hardness, as Charles Leclerc – who had the fastest time of the session in the middle sector – and Carlos Sainz Jr. finished fifth and with late improvements six occupied on the yellow-walled tire.
Pierre Gasly was seventh for AlphaTauri ahead of Vettel, who lost a piece of the front wing of his Aston Martin when he hit the curbs of Turn 8 hard on his first flying lap on the softs in the middle of the session.
Perez’s soft tire lap after the restart was only good enough for ninth place. Lance Stroll rounded out the top 10.
Alonso was 15th ahead of the Williams couples Nicholas Latifi and Roy Nissany, who were also in FP1 – in this case for George Russell.
Mazepin had managed to come back from the gravel after his early break and eventually reach the back of the field.
Spanish F1 Grand Prix – FP1 Results
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