Max Verstappen dominated a frenetic twice-suspended first practice session at the Australian Grand Prix that saw several driver in the gravel.

Verstappen set the early pace after opening the hour with a set of soft tires and never lost top spot, eventually lowering the benchmark to 1m18.790s on worn rubber. It wasn’t completely smooth running for the Dutchman, however, who complained of gearbox problems early in the session before later clambering over the curb at the exit of Turn 4 and spinning across the track, coming perilously close to nosing the barrier. The Red Bull’s tires ruined, he returned to pit lane and ended his session.

Max did not have the easiest of FP1 sessions out in Melbourne 😅#AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/qLKhiPmEa7

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 31, 2023

The world champion’s scrappy final laps left open the door to Lewis Hamilton to make a late gain on top spot, closing to within a modest 0.433s with his final soft run. The Briton noted that his Mercedes was bouncing again, and partway through the session he suffered a big snap in the middle of the super-fast Turn 9-10 chicane, but he ended the hour unscathed.

Sergio Perez flirted with disaster on his way to third and 0.503s off this teammate, albeit after only one soft-tire run. He skated over grass and collected gravel several times, including at the exit of Turn 3 and later again at the first turn.

Perez wasn’t alone in overrunning the track limits, with several drivers overestimating the amount grip available on the green street track, perhaps spurred on by Verstappen’s dominant time.

Yuki Tsunoda came the closest to depriving his mechanics of a lunch break with a massive lock-up at Turn 1, pitching him into a spin and getting him partially airborne as he hit the gravel. He avoided the wall by mere feet and was able to continue back to pit lane.

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Both Haas drivers were frequent visitors to the run-off areas, with Kevin Magnussen collecting more than his fair share of stones and Nico Hulkenberg locking up and trimming the grass.at the penultimate corner after being spooked by a McLaren on the apex.

Undoubtedly stressed engineers were given a breather by a mid-session red flag thrown due to a GPS failure that prevented teams from monitoring drivers on track, which the FIA considered a safety issue.

A second red flag was thrown for Williams driver Logan Sargeant, whose car shut down with four minutes remaining, bringing FP1 to an early end.

Fernando Alonso just squeezed into fourth for Aston Martin before practice was called off, with Ferrari teammates Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz following 0.588s and 0.715s off the pace respectively.

Lando Norris was hearteningly high for McLaren in seventh and only just behind the red cars. Pierre Gasly followed in eighth ahead of George Russell and Lance Stroll.

Alex Albon was 11th ahead of Australian Oscar Piastri, Nico Hulkenberg, Nyck de Vries and the stopped Logan Sargeant.

Esteban Ocon was 16th, with Yuki Tsunoda, Alfa Romeo teammates Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, and Kevin Magnussen completing the bottom four.

Max Verstappen was left feeling “like I was missing a lung” by the virus that delayed his arrival to Saudi Arabia and impacted his performance but he expects to be stronger in the Australian Grand Prix.

The championship leader arrived at the track in Jeddah for the first time on the Friday ahead of FP1 due to wanting to take as much time recovering from illness. At the time he stated he was “feeling fine again” but now admits the virus left him much weaker than usual at the previous race and he’s been working hard to strengthen his condition ahead of Melbourne.

“I refused to believe it myself for a long time because at home I was really ill — I could barely walk around and it felt like I was missing a lung,” Verstappen said. “I got to the weekend really believing it was gone, because normally when you get sick then two or three days after you’re all right and you can do your workouts, but then when I jumped in the car in FP1 even just one performance lap I felt like I had to recover for two laps to breathe normally.

“So it definitely did affect me throughout the weekend…it was one of the first races that I was physically limited, and that’s really frustrating when you’re in the car. But since then I’ve been trying to work on it, trying to improve it, and I do think that it has improved a lot.

“I think it was just all coming together in Jeddah — it’s quite a tough track in general, when you don’t feel well it hits hard on you. But these things unfortunately happen, you catch a virus and stuff, so hopefully from now onwards for the rest of the year I should be OK.”

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Verstappen admits the setback means he’s actually grateful for the gap in races that follows Australia, with four weeks until the next round in Baku allowing him time to train.

“Well, a couple of weeks ago I would say that I was not looking forward to it, but then I got really ill and have just been struggling a bit since that time, especially the last race out. So for me now these three weeks are just about getting back to full fitness, getting a full program in, so in a way it’s probably nice now.

“Normally I would also prefer to keep racing, yeah. That’s nothing to do with looking into the car, trying to make it faster. I think that’s a natural process, but it’s a bit weird to have three weeks off, especially that early on in the season.”