Lewis Hamilton led the way in Friday’s practices sessions while his teammate, Nico Rosberg, had to apologize to his team for aquaplaning and clouting the wall in his new 2016 car.
The damp conditions for Friday’s practice sessions caused several off’s for driver and put a few teams on the back foot with limited running. While Mercedes set the outright pace, we’ve yet to see the pure pace of the Ferrari against Mercedes and it wasn’t the start of the season that Rosberg was looking for.
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1m38.841s | – | 7 |
| 2 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India/Mercedes | 1m39.308s | 0.467s | 8 |
| 3 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1m39.486s | 0.645s | 7 |
| 4 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull/TAG Heuer | 1m39.535s | 0.694s | 9 |
| 5 | Carlos Sainz | Toro Rosso/Ferrari | 1m39.694s | 0.853s | 16 |
| 6 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren/Honda | 1m39.895s | 1.054s | 16 |
| 7 | Jenson Button | McLaren/Honda | 1m40.008s | 1.167s | 13 |
| 8 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1m40.761s | 1.920s | 7 |
| 9 | Sergio Perez | Force India/Mercedes | 1m41.256s | 2.415s | 8 |
| 10 | Daniil Kvyat | Red Bull/TAG Heuer | 1m42.411s | 3.570s | 10 |
| 11 | Esteban Gutierrez | Haas/Ferrari | 1m42.891s | 4.050s | 10 |
| 12 | Pascal Wehrlein | Manor/Mercedes | 1m43.401s | 4.560s | 25 |
| 13 | Romain Grosjean | Haas/Ferrari | 1m43.731s | 4.890s | 8 |
| 14 | Rio Haryanto | Manor/Mercedes | 1m44.304s | 5.463s | 22 |
| 15 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1m47.356s | 8.515s | 4 |
| 16 | Kevin Magnussen | Renault | – | – | 2 |
| 17 | Jolyon Palmer | Renault | – | – | 5 |
| 18 | Felipe Massa | Williams/Mercedes | – | – | 2 |
| 19 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams/Mercedes | – | – | 2 |
Well it is a practice session so Nico is practicing his excuses for the season.
It’s such strange behaviour for an F1 driver, apologising for ‘his’ mistake.
He’s been teamed with Wurz, Schumacher and Hamilton, the man is basically uncoachable
I’m gutted to see Manor are still off the pace, I really thought the Mercedes P.U would close most of the gap to the rest of the mid field. At least Mclaren are up with the pace.
But it’s all rain disrupted practice, so way too early to draw any conclusions……..but the perfect time for idle speculation ;-)
Nico still showing he is a little softy. Next you will see him apologise for not putting enough fuel in the car.