Hamilton beat his title rival Max Verstappen of Red Bull in FP1 by 0.056s and was then 0.061s ahead of Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas under the floodlights in FP2.
Saudi Arabian Grand Prix FP1 results: Hamilton fastest from Verstappen
What happened in Free Practice 1?
First practice in Qatar took place in daytime, meaning it was not fully representative of either qualifying or the race, both of which will occur in cooler conditions at night.
Verstappen spent the early part of FP1 on the hard compound tyre, setting the early pace at 1m30.920s – over half a second up on Hamilton who started on the softs. Verstappen improved his time to 1m30.014s after 25 minutes.
Mercedes ran again on softs with 20 minutes remaining, with Bottas jumping to the top on 1m30.009s, pipping Verstappen’s hard-tyred time by 0.005s.
As track conditions improved towards then end, Hamilton then unleashed a lap of 1m29.786s – gaining most of his time in the middle sector of the track. Verstappen didn’t improve his time on his first run on softs and suffered a big moment on the kerbs at Turn 23.
After a spat with Esteban Ocon at Turn 1, Verstappen recovered his composure to go second fastest on 1m29.842s, 0.056s slower than Hamilton – although he did set the fastest first sector time overall.
Bottas stayed third, ahead of Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri), an impressive Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) and Carlos Sainz (Ferrari).
Saudi Arabian Grand Prix FP2 results: Hamilton fastest from Bottas
What happened in Free Practice 2?
Under the lights in FP2, Verstappen set the early pace on medium tyres at 1m29.706s and, although briefly being usurped by Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri, Max improved to 1m29.290s after 15 minutes.
Bottas took P1 away with a lap of 1m29.079s, which was soon topped by Hamilton on 1m29.018s, 0.061s faster – both still running the medium tyre.
The majority of teams switched to the soft tyre just after the halfway mark, but the flurry of improvements failed to follow as expected – partly due to slow cars getting in the way of rivals on fast laps, while Verstappen complained of keeping temperature in his fronts.
Gasly jumped up to third, 0.081s off the pace, on softs. Verstappen stayed out for a third run on the same soft tyres, improving his time but staying fourth – almost two tenths off Hamilton's pace.
Neither Mercedes improved on softs but held their 1-2 nonetheless ahead of Gasly and Verstappen. The Alpines of Fernando Alonso and Ocon were next up from Sainz and Tsunoda.
The session ended five minutes early when Leclerc smashed his Ferrari into the barriers at Turn 22, wrecking its right-hand side.
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