At the start of the 60-minute session, AlphaTauri's Nyck de Vries set the first-place benchmark at 1m17.918s during the opening laps using the prototype compound construction set to become standard across Pirelli's range from the upcoming British GP, which several other runners sampled early on too.
But Alonso, Valtteri Bottas and Esteban Ocon all then cycled through to temporarily head the pack following their first laps out of the pits – the field at this stage spread across the hard and mediums already in use for Pirelli since the start of the season.
