SHANGHAI, March 21 (Xinhua) -- McLaren's Lando Norris set the pace in Free Practice for the 2025 Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix here on Friday.

In the weekend's only practice session ahead of the Sprint Qualifying session later in the day, Norris lapped the Shanghai International Circuit in 1:31.504, over two seconds quicker than Max Verstappen's pole position time at last year's Chinese Grand Prix.

Having qualified on pole and won the 2025 season opener last week in Australia, Norris had said that he expected McLaren to be quick in Shanghai, and the papaya squad does appear to be the team to beat, with second-placed Charles Leclerc of Ferrari 0.454 seconds adrift of the Briton.

Behind Leclerc, who recovered from an earlier spin at Turn 1, Norris' teammate Oscar Piastri was third after running wide on his final run, and Leclerc's teammate Lewis Hamilton was fourth, surviving a moment of his own when he ran wide entering the pit lane.

Mercedes' George Russell finished fifth as the only other driver within one second of Norris, but the Briton had been fastest earlier in the session when all the drivers had been running on Medium tyres, suggesting that Mercedes may have strong race pace.

In a largely incident-free session, the hour's only stoppage came after Alpine's Jack Doohan pulled off with 15 minutes to go, with the Australian complaining that his car had lost power steering and switched off. Enditem

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