Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc emerged unscathed from a 150mph crash as Lewis Hamilton ended practice fastest at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Leclerc lost control at Turn 22, a corner identified by drivers as one of the biggest challenges on the new Jeddah street circuit.
The crash, which badly damaged the Ferrari, brought the session to a premature end with five minutes to go.
Hamilton was 0.195 seconds quicker than title rival Max Verstappen in fourth.
The Dutchman leads Hamilton by eight points with two races of the season remaining.
The championship fight hangs in the balance, but in the context of each driver’s title hopes, it is more important for Hamilton to win in Saudi Arabia than Verstappen.
If Verstappen beats Hamilton, the Mercedes driver would need the Dutchman to hit trouble in the final race in Abu Dhabi to overhaul him. But Verstappen can afford to finish second behind Hamilton in Jeddah and still be more or less level on points.
Seven-time champion Hamilton was 0.061secs ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas. Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly was third, 0.081secs off the pace.
Unusually, neither Mercedes driver set their best time on the ‘soft’ tyre, while Verstappen did, but could only improve very slightly from his best on the medium.
Both top teams seemed to be struggling to get the soft tyres to work around the high-speed Jeddah Corniche street circuit for the Gulf country’s maiden grand prix.
Verstappen was also complaining about the behaviour of the front end of his car.
Who could be quickest in the race?
Red Bull appeared a long way behind Mercedes when the teams simulated race-distance high-fuel running later in the session.
Hamilton was also fastest in the first session earlier in the day, but just 0.056secs clear of Verstappen.
Verstappen made a blistering start to the first session, well clear of the rest of the drivers for the first quarter of the session after quickly getting up to speed. But Mercedes upped their pace as the session went on to supplant him.
Verstappen was a couple of tenths of a second off Hamilton until a run right at the end of the session closed him up to his rival.
In the second session, Hamilton was 0.172secs quicker than Verstappen on the medium tyres when they did their first runs.
Neither Hamilton nor Bottas could improve on the soft tyres on their qualifying simulation runs. Verstappen also struggled to do so – but did in the end shave 0.077secs off his fastest time to edge closer to the Mercedes.
Behind Verstappen, the Alpines of Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon were fifth and sixth, ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Leclerc.
McLaren’s Lando Norris was 12th, just behind team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, with George Russell 17th for Williams.
