Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFormula 1

Rosberg tops FP1 after Maldonado crash

Nico Rosberg recovered from reliability issues to set the fastest time of FP1 for the Belgian Grand Prix after a crash for Pastor Maldonado.

The Mercedes driver reported a loss of drive early in the session and was confined to the pits for much of the opening 45 minutes, during which time Maldonado crashed exiting Turn 7 - Malmedy - sliding sideways across the track and hitting the tyre barrier on the inside of the circuit, damaging the right hand side of the car.

Following the red flag period, Rosberg was able to rejoin the action and promptly went fastest on his first flying lap, eventually ending top with a best time of 1:51.082. Rosberg's lap was good enough to put him 0.242s clear of team-mate Lewis Hamilton in what was a close session for the frontrunners.

Daniel Ricciardo gave Red Bull an encouraging start to the weekend by setting the third fastest time, just 0.291s slower than Rosberg's benchmark. Kimi Raikkonen was fourth for Ferrari as less than 0.4s covered the top four despite the 7.004km length of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

Both Ferrari and Red Bull cars were inside the top six with Sebastian Vettel fifth and Daniil Kvyat sixth, ending the session as the only other drivers able to get within a second of Rosberg.

Toro Rosso was also strong in the opening session of the weekend as Max Verstappen finished seventh and team-mate Carlos Sainz eighth, just ahead of Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas. The rest of the midfield remained closely matched, with less than half a second covering Verstappen in seventh to Felipe Massa in 14th place.

McLaren didn't enjoy the smoothest of sessions with its updated Honda power unit, with both Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button spending large chunks of FP1 in the garage, completing just 29 laps between them. By contrast, Verstappen managed 27 laps alone. The two McLarens were also over two seconds adrift as Alonso ended the session 16th and Button 18th, with only Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi below the 2009 world champion.

A number of drivers got a little greedy exiting Malmedy, kicking up dirt on the outside of the corner, but Merhi was the only driver to swap ends during FP1 as he spun at Turn 18 in the final half hour of the session.

Chris Medland's Belgian Grand Prix preview

Click here for a gallery of the biggest crashes at Spa-Francorchamps

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:51.082	19
02	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:51.324	24
03	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:51.373	18
04	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:51.478	23
05	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:51.866	21
06	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:51.960	18
07	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:52.158	27
08	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:52.421	26
09	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:52.423	20
10	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:52.511	19
11	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus	1:52.539	15
12	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:52.614	20
13	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:52.640	16
14	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:52.653	22
15	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:53.426	16
16	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:53.502	15
17	Jolyon Palmer	Lotus	1:53.799	23
18	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:54.225	14
19	Will Stevens	Manor	1:55.501	16
20	Roberto Merhi	Manor	1:56.086	17

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.