The first hour-long practice session started in cloudy weather, and all the cars drove off in the first few minutes – most immediately drove the prototype tire compound that Pirelli had brought to test that weekend, which has a stiffer rear sidewall.
Aston Martins Sebastian Vettel led the field to establish first place at 1: 12.697 minutes on the unmarked test tires, but that was soon beaten by the drivers who followed him.
Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez placed 1: 06.941 and 1: 06.941 respectively on the normal hard and soft tires, respectively.
Pierre Gasly then ran a 1: 06.375s on the medium-sized tires (now the C4), but this was canceled because the AlphaTauri driver had overrun the last corner and so Verstappen’s 1: 06.640s was increased to the extreme .
At the end of the first 10 minutes, when the Mercedes drivers languished at the end of the field and put their times three seconds behind the pace when they finished their run on the prototype tires in high fuel runs, Verstappen then set a new best time of 1: 06.007s as he continued his rounds on the softs.
The Red Bull driver then switched to the test tires, with which he was 1: 05.558 minutes faster just before the end of the first quarter of the session.
The test tires were largely swapped out for the remainder of the session – they can be reused later on Friday afternoon in FP2, with drivers having to complete at least 12 laps each on this new construction that is set to make its race debut at the UK GP next time – and the Mercedes drivers returned to the track on the softs shortly before half-time.
Hamilton jumped to third place but caught a slower car in the final corners and lost time as the traffic also affected his subsequent laps.
The world champion and Nikita Mazepin got close on the uphill tight right turn 3 when Hamilton made another run on the softs, which meant he retreated and immediately attempted another flying lap, during which he was alone on turn 3 imprisoned and therefore gave up this round.
Hamilton set a personal best during the later run but ended up in seventh place, 0.566 seconds off the top, while Verstappen used his flying run on the soft tracks just after half to set the fastest time to 1: 05.143 minutes improve.
The Red Bull driver was followed in the time tables by the Ferrari couple, who both had moments in Turn 1 during the early race.
Sainz locked his left front briefly on the approach to the uphill 90-degree right-hander, just before teammate Charles Leclerc had a major lock on his right front and went deep into the runoff – Monegasse later had an almost identical incident at the same Job.
Leclerc, who also blocked his right front and went into the runoff late in the session at Turn 3, brought the soft tires to 1: 05.409 minutes, 0.266 seconds behind Verstappen and just 0.022 seconds ahead of his teammate.
Valtteri Bottas had also increased the order when he switched to the softs in the middle of the session, but he set a personal best – back on the softs – with just over 10 minutes of session remaining to finish fourth on a 1:05 .445s.
Yuki Tsunoda, who crashed in the gravel behind Turn 5 on the first few laps after dipping his left wheels in the gravel that left the long right turn at Turn 4, finished fifth for AlphaTauri.
Kimi Raikkonen finished sixth for Alfa, while Sergio Perez, Gasly and Lando Norris completed the top 10.
Norris was one of several drivers to run for the runoff at Turn 1, including Mazepin and the Mercedes drivers a few times in the closing stages – with Hamilton suggesting he was struggling to warm up the tires.
Lance Stroll made two high-speed spins – the first at Turn 6, after dipping his right wheels in the gravel bed, which at the time was being moved closer to the exit curbs for the 2021 Austria races.
He impaled on the inside of the track and recovered from the grass that was at the end of the first 10 minutes of the run before losing the back of his car on the final corner as he started a flying lap on the softs point halfway .
In the second incident, Stroll spun around after going over the pointed curbs at Turn 10 and then setting his rear tires on fire when he was slowing down – the Canadian later said the tires were not at the correct temperature when he was on stepped on the accelerator.
Stroll was able to turn around and recover and later ended up in 13th place and two places ahead of his Aston Martin teammate Sebastian Vettel.
The Astons were shared by Guanyu Zhou, who replaced Fernando Alonso at Alpine, while Callum Ilott and Roy Nissany took 16 and 18 for Alfa and Williams, the duo replacing Antonio Giovinazzi and George Russell, respectively.
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