Alpine driver Franco Colapinto only got a singular lap in before having to retire the car in the only practice session of the sprint race weekend. He started experiencing technical issues towards the end of his lap and was close enough to get the car back to the pits safely.

He slowly made his way into the pits after just a few minutes of track action and was very lucky to pass the pit entry. His mechanics were able to retrieve him further up the pit lane, saving the car just before the first qualification session of the weekend.

Colapinto reported that the car's throttle stopped working, as he experienced throttle failure which caused the Alpine A526 to lose power.

Lawson experienced a loss of power steering going into the first corner and got stuck in gear as he slowly made his way to the side of the exit of Turn 2.

His halt first brought out a Virtual Safety car, which eventually escalated to a red flag. While the marshals situated Lawson and the VCARB 03, the rest of the grid returned to the pits.

The practice session got extended by four minutes to make up for lost time under the red flag that came out just twelve minutes into the session.

Lawson’s halt on the side of the track turned out to be something of controversy as after the session he was summoned to the stewards for being in violation of Article C9.3 of the F1 Regulations. His clutch disengagement system was not working correctly which prompted the investigation.

RedBull has made minor upgrades to their front wing flaps going into the Canadian Grand Prix weekend after their massive overhaul in Miami and it seems it is progressing in the right direction for the team.

Verstappen had positive things to say about the new front wing tweaks saying that it “feels better”. RedBull reports that they have more minor tweaks coming to the RB22 soon.

In Free Practice 1 Formula One trialed their new lighting system on the cars that is supposed to warn other drivers of when cars ahead are slowing. 

The different-colored lights represent the Motor Generator Unit - Kinetic (MGU-K) power derating, or, simply put, engine deployment, of the car. Blue means the MGU-K is no longer at full power, purple means the MGU-K is fully cut, and yellow represents a super clip.

The FiA decided to use the practice session as its trial run after hearing feedback from the drivers that they could not tell when cars ahead were slowing from the simple red flashing lights for every state of the MGU-K.

Both of the McLaren drivers found their fronts locking up into Turn 13, going straight through the chicane, and rejoining the track around the overtake activation point.

Many drivers experienced lock-ups entering Turn 1 as well as entering Turn 10. With the track being mostly chicanes and hairpins, it brings a challenge as is, and expected lock-ups.

Not only were drivers struggling with locking up in the session, but they were also struggling with grip. The track was very dusty heading into the weekend, making it very slippery and forcing drivers to find every bit of grip they could, with many struggling coming out of Turn 2.

Alexander Albon went into the wall at Turns 7 and 8 to bring out the second red flag of the session 36 minutes left. The crash was caused by car 23 hitting a groundhog on track and losing control of the car.

The remaining cars were brought back to the pitlane and held, watching the time tick down to 22 minutes before the pitlane exit eventually opened again, and cars went back out on track. The FiA added time back lost from the red flag to get back to 35 minutes of track time remaining. 

With this being the only practice session of the weekend due to the Sprint Race on Saturday, drivers need as much time as they can get to be on track without consequences. 

The Mercedes driver had a bit of a run in with the wall off the apex of Turn 1 but was very lucky to have just slightly tapped the wall and recovered the car.

He quickly rejoined the track after the spin in the barriers and no flags were deployed after previously having issues with Turn 1 and 2 with his teammate, Kimi Antonelli, as well. 

Haas driver Esteban Ocon had a big spin into the barriers between Turns 3 and 4 that ripped off his entire front wing. He was not as fortunate as Russell as that puts Haas at a rush to fix the car before Sprint Qualification later in the day, possibly putting Ocon at a disadvantage for qualification. 

This is a drastic difference from what Haas was expecting this weekend as the team and drivers were excited about the new sidepod upgrades with Bearman making optimistic comments about upcoming performance and the VF-26.

The session was topped by Antonelli followed by his teammate and the Ferrari pair. Verstappen took fifth, beating the two McLaren drivers by 0.7 seconds.