Rosberg leads Hamilton in FP1 at Spa

Rosberg leads Hamilton in FP1 at Spa

This morning we saw Mercedes picking up where they left off in opening practice at the Belgian Grand Prix, with Nico Rosberg fastest ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

Rosberg, who is the current World Championship leader, topped the timesheets with a lap time of 1:51.577s to go 0.097s faster than his team-mate Hamilton, with both of the drivers trading times at the top midway through the 90-minute session. But Hamilton during the session did ruin a potential lap that could have beaten Rosberg when he went off the circuit at Pouhon.

Hamilton did repeat the error a lap later and also went wide at Les Combes during the session too.

With the Spa circuit that places emphasis on power rather than downforce, the presence of Fernando Alonso in third was notable who was 0.2 seconds behind Rosberg, even if Alonso stated yesterday to the media that his chances of success this weekend were very slim.

Jenson Button’s McLaren was in fourth place, with Kimi Raikkonen (who is four times a winner at Spa) placing fifth overall despite his Ferrari suffering an overheating ERS system. Behind Raikkonen came Sergio Perez in sixth place, with the top ten completed by Kevin Magnussen in seventh place, Nico Hulkenberg in eighth place, Daniel Ricciardo in ninth place (the fastest Renault-powered runner) and Valtteri Bottas in tenth place.

It would seem that Red Bull are in for a tough weekend with Ricciardo being the fastest Renault-powered runner in ninth place but with Sebastian Vettel (who started his nine-race romp to last year’s title at Spa last year) was eleventh. After suffering a moment at Pouhon, Daniil Kvyat did well to finish in twelfth place ahead of Romain Grosjean in thirteenth place and Adrian Sutil in fourteenth place.

It would seem to be another slow start for the Williams team despite being touted as being Mercedes' closest rival this weekend, with Bottas being tenth fastest ahead of his team-mate Felipe Massa who was fifteenth place. Jean-Eric Vergne was sixteenth place and Sauber reserve driver Gideo van der Garde in seventeenth place, who had power issues with the C33 during the session.

Further back down the grid, Pastor Maldonado was nineteenth fastest ahead of Jules Bianchi in twentieth place and Marussia driver Alexander Rossi who was making his debut this weekend. However, during the session, Marussia announced that Rossi will now hand back the place to Max Chilton after the “contractual issues” were resolved this morning ahead of FP2. But he is still the first American driver to make his debut in an F1 weekend since Scott Speed in 2007.
Caterham were still off Marussia’s pace, despite a heavily-revised CT05 car which features a brand new and rather less ungainly nose. Despite this, debutant Andre Lotterer who replaces Kamui Kobayashi this weekend gave his team mate- Marcus Ericsson something to think about by outpacing the Swede by a tenth of a second.

The classification of FP1 at the Belgian Grand Prix is as follows below:-

Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1.51.577
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 0.097s
Fernando Alonso Ferrari 0.228s
Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 0.827s
Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1.241s
Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1.326s
Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1.345s
Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1.360s
Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1.395s
Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1.595s
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1.792s
Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 2.017s
Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 2.020s
Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 2.126s
Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 2.291s
Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 2.612s
Gideo van der Garde Sauber-Ferrari 2.758s
Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 3.759s
Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 4.265s
Alexander Rossi Marussia-Ferrari 5.655s
Andre Lotterer Caterham-Renault 6.309s
Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 6.400

Thanks to Kevin Bennett for the Photo of Nico