{"id":39182,"date":"2026-06-12T13:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/39182\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T13:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T13:57:07","slug":"mclaren-junior-impresses-as-george-russell-tops-fp1-for-f1-barcelona-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/39182\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren junior impresses as George Russell tops FP1 for F1 Barcelona GP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">George Russell topped the timesheets in the first free practice session for this weekend\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/series\/single-seater\/formula-1\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Formula 1<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/racing\/2026\/barcelona-catalunya\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix<\/a>, but plaudits will go to McLaren junior Leonardo Fornaroli.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Italian, taking the place of Lando Norris, went fifth with a 1:17.216s, just two tenths off Max Verstappen in fourth, and six tenths off teammate Oscar Piastri.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Russell\u2019s 1:16.363s saw him top the pile by two tenths from the Australian.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Verstappen was unimpressed by the handling of his Red Bull, complaining of both understeer and oversteer, as well as tyre degradation on the hot circuit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many eyes were on the stand-in drivers, this particular pack headed by Fornaroli, making his FP1 debut. Paul Aron, deputising for Nico Hulkenberg at Audi, was sixth, a tenth behind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dino Beganovic, taking the place of Lewis Hamilton, put his Ferrari eighth, with Ayumu Iwasa the next rookie in 14th, taking the RB22 occupied by Isack Hadjar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Frederik Vesti, sitting in for championship-leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli, was 15th, followed by Colton Herta, who deputised for Sergio Perez at Cadillac.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For Herta, it was an alien task, stepping into the team\u2019s car for the first time, ending the day just under four tenths of a second from Lance Stroll.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Luke Browning\u2019s afternoon was a literal non-starter, the Brit\u2019s Williams suffering from an \u201celectrical issue\u201d that truncated his running before it had a chance to get going.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cA disappointing end to the session for Luke and the team as we continue to investigate an electrical issue on Alex\u2019s [Albon] FW48,\u201d the team said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cLuke\u2019s open print session has been rescheduled to the Austrian Grand Prix where he will drive Carlos\u2019 FW48 in FP1.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-2c68c34d6d99af455b73c0f38855223d wp-block-paragraph\">READ MORE \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/2026\/06\/12\/f1-2026-barcelona-catalunya-grand-prix-fp1-results\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">F1 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix \u2013 FP1 Results<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell topped the timesheets in the first free practice session for this weekend\u2019s Formula 1 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,18073,4357],"class_list":["post-39182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barcelona","tag-barcelonagp","tag-f1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}