Perez leads Leclerc in opening practice

Perez ended up just 0.004s clear of Leclerc, with Max Verstappen third ahead of Carlos Sainz and Mercedes pair Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.

With just the one hour of practice running to get in before Friday’s qualifying session for the final sprint weekend of 2022, the pack headed out en masse at the start – their running split across the hard and medium compounds.

Kevin Magnussen, running at the head of the snake out of the pits, duly set the first place…