World championship leader Charles Leclerc fronts dominant Ferrari performance to finish ahead of team-mate Carlos Sainz in wet conditions in Imola; Watch Emilia Romagna GP qualifying live on Sky Sports F1 at 4pm on Friday
Friday 22 April 2022 15:28, UK
Charles Leclerc was fastest ahead of team-mate Carlos Sainz as Ferrari produced a dominant showing in a wet first practice session at the Emilia Romagna GP.
The world championship leader's time of 1:29.402 was almost 0.9s clear of Sainz, with Max Verstappen a further 0.5s back for Red Bull, ahead of qualifying later on Friday in Imola that will set the grid for the first Sprint of the season on Saturday.
In a session which saw cars regularly spinning and struggling to stay on track in the challenging conditions, Haas were the surprise package as Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher finished fourth and fifth respectively ahead of the other Red Bull of Sergio Perez.
Meanwhile, it was another disappointing showing for Mercedes, with George Russell 10th and Lewis Hamilton 18th - and seven seconds off Leclerc's time - as the Silver Arrows once more failed to compete with their rivals.
There was plenty of intrigue going into the session as Formula 1's all-new 2022 cars faced genuine wet conditions for the first time, but ultimately Leclerc's early-season dominance was only exaggerated as Ferrari coped best with the wet and cold track at the Italian team's home GP.
As the session began with all the drivers using full wet tyres, it initially appeared as though Ferrari and Red Bull would be closely matched once more, but a change to intermediates midway through saw Leclerc ascend to a league of his own.
The Monegasque, who holds a 34-point lead at the top of the world championship after winning two of the first three races of the season, appeared to be struggling to master the conditions as he spun on several occasions, narrowly avoiding what could have been a costly clash with the wall in one instance.
However, that incident appeared to sharpen Leclerc's focus, as with the session entering its final quarter, he produced a lap that even his team-mate Sainz could not come close to.
While drier conditions are possible in qualifying and could alter the landscape later on Friday, the 1.4s by which Verstappen trailed Leclerc will be of major concern to Red Bull, who have previously been closely matched with Ferrari.
"The Ferraris and the Haas will be praying for rain for the rest of this weekend," Sky Sports F1's Anthony Davidson said.
"What an advantage they have. If you told me earlier this weekend that Charles Leclerc would have a 1.5 second lead, I wouldn't have believed you."
While there was little doubt in terms of the top of the leaderboard after Leclerc's stunning time, Valtteri Bottas ensured the session finished dramatically as he very nearly hit the wall after a spin, with the chequered flag already having been waved.
Having been considerably slower than Ferrari and Red Bull at the opening races of the season, any hopes that wet conditions might aid Mercedes were swiftly extinguished.
Both Russell and Hamilton struggled initially on wet tyres and there was little change on the intermediates as the seven-time world champion finished ahead of only the Alfa Romeo of Zhou Guanyu and the Williams of Nicholas Latifi.
The fact that the forecast for Saturday's Sprint and Sunday's race is dry further complicates the situation for the Silver Arrows, who will have to carry their qualifying setup into what could be vastly different conditions over the weekend.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports F1 that he was "not delighted" with his team's performance, but insisted he remains confident their car will come good later in the season.
"There's nine seconds between the quickest and the last," Wolff said. "This is all about getting grip into the tyre and the temperature. The Ferraris appear to have unlocked this thing and everybody else is pretty much all over the place.
"I thought it would [level the field]. The feedback we are getting from Lewis and George is that there's literally zero grip. These gaps point to the tyres.
"I think when you are able to unlock that issue, you will do a jump. There will be quite some discrepancies in terms of performance. It's not the car, and it's not the driver.
"Certainly when you see your car pounding around five seconds off the pace, you want to strangle yourself. But I enjoy the challenge, and I enjoy it being bad - because in the long run we're going to be good.
"We need to heat the tyres, and try to find the setup that brings them in quicker and hope the clever guys get on top of it. We've done it in the past."
