In this paper we initiate the study of the maximal subalgebras of exceptional simple classical Lie algebras g over algebraically closed fields k of positive characteristic p, such that the prime characteristic is good for g. In this paper we deal wit
h what is surely the most unnatural case; that is, where the maximal subalgebra in question is a simple subalgebra of non-classical type. We show that only the first Witt algebra can occur as a subalgebra of g and give explicit details on when it may be maximal in g.
