Hamilton heads Rosberg for dominant Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the opening practice session for the Italian Grand Prix as Mercedes' new power unit looked ominously strong.

With Mercedes spending all seven of its development tokens on a new upgrade for this weekend's race in Monza, Hamilton set the pace with a 1:24.670, leaving him nearly half a second clear of team-mate Nico Rosberg. Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel was more than 1.5s adrift of Hamilton as Mercedes dominated the opening session.

Vettel was clearly pushing throughout the session, spinning at Turn 1 and admitting: "Nothing happened I just lost the rear and was a bit greedy on a couple of settings".

Ferrari was closely matched by Force India throughout the first 90 minutes, with Nico Hulkenberg fourth ahead of team-mate Sergio Perez. The two Force Indias were separated by just 0.1s, while Perez was less than half a tenth clear of Kimi Raikkonen in sixth.

Raikkonen complained of issues with his brakes ahead of his final run, becoming one of a number of drivers to skip the first chicane having outbraked himself at the end of the pit straight. Both Mercedes drivers also ran wide at the same corner as everyone searched for the ideal braking point.

Daniel Ricciardo was an encouraging seventh for Red Bull despite its power unit deficit at Monza, although he is set for a grid penalty on Saturday as the team looks to introduce a new unit ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix. Both Williams drivers were inside the top ten in FP1 with Felipe Massa eighth and Valtteri Bottas ninth, despite Massa spending a prolonged spell in the garage.

Pastor Maldonado rounded out the top ten, with the field closely matched behind Mercedes as just half a second covered fourth to tenth. Maldonado was a similar margin clear of team-mate Jolyon Palmer who was driving in place of Romain Grosjean during FP1.

Toro Rosso suffered a difficult session as Carlos Sainz complained of brake issues before spinning off at Parabolica and causing a red flag. Sainz lost the rear of the car under braking at the entry of the corner, sliding sideways in to the gravel and being unable to rejoin the track. Team-mate Max Verstappen also ran wide at the same corner and complained of vibrations later in the session.

As expected, McLaren was off the pace as Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button ended the session 17th and 18th respectively, with just Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi for Manor slower than the two world champions.

Click here for Chris Medland's Italian Grand Prix preview and bold podium prediction. 

2016 F1 driver line-ups so far

F1 drivers' girlfriends gallery

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter