Nearly a week on from Red Bull’s humbling in Singapore, Verstappen utterly dominated the early stages – not only leading the pack out of the pack but heading the times from his first flier, a 1m33.719s set on the hard tyres that no one else could get anywhere near as the pack was split across the harder tyre compounds.
This included a prototype medium compound Verstappen switched too after going quickest again on his second hards flier, his next lap after a quick trip to the pits a 1m37.597s.
