Russell leads Mercedes 1-2 in opening practice

Kevin Magnussen led the pack around at the start of the early running on the medium and hard tyres – the Dane therefore establishing the first place benchmark at 1m36.852s using the yellow-walled rubber.

Esteban Ocon and Nico Hulkenberg then forged ahead on the medium and hard tyres respectively, before Lewis Hamilton ended the opening five-minutes of the one-hour session by going quickest on a 1m34.527s.

But that did not last long either as Verstappen – unlike…