Rosberg fastest as Mercedes dominates FP1

Nico Rosberg set the fastest time of a first practice session for the Russian Grand Prix which saw many drivers spin.

The low grip conditions at the Sochi Autodrom on Friday morning caught out Sebastian Vettel on two occasions, while Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Daniil Kvyat also had spins but all avoided damage.

With many teams opting for a majority of supersoft tyres for the race weekend - with a one-stop predicted - the softest compound was immediately in use during FP1. Some early laps on soft tyres gave way to supersofts for Rosberg and he duly set the fastest time with a 1:38.127.

Hamilton was second quickest but almost three quarters of a second slower than his team-mate having spun early in the session. On one of his opening runs, Hamilton lost the rear of his car at Turn 2 and quickly swapped ends, but had plenty of run-off area in which to recover.

Vettel was third quickest but was clearly struggling in the first hour of the session as he spun at Turn 15 - following Button who had already done the same - and then a few moments later also spun at the penultimate corner. Eventually Vettel did get a lap together and was 0.3s adrift of Hamilton but over a second slower than Rosberg. Encouragingly for Ferrari, however, the Scuderia only ran soft tyres during FP1 having brought six sets to Sochi compared to four for each Mercedes driver.

Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was less than 0.2s off Vettel's best time, with Felipe Massa fifth for Williams - 0.027s further back - despite being confined to the garage for much of the first hour with a clutch problem.

Red Bull debuted the Aeroscreen cockpit protection device on Daniel Ricciardo's car during his installation lap, with the Australian sixth quickest after removing the screen. Team-mate Daniil Kvyat was eighth but followed Vettel's lead in spinning at the penultimate corner, almost completing another spin as he extravagantly rejoined the track.

As well as Button and Vettel, Jolyon Palmer swapped ends at Turn 15 during what was another difficult session for the rookie. Palmer was 18th quickest at the chequered flag, five places and 0.8s adrift of Russian test driver Sergey Sirotkin who was making his Renault debut in FP1.

Another replacement driver for the first session was Alfonso Celis, with the Mexican taking over at Force India in place of Sergio Perez. Despite setting his best time on supersofts, Celis was slowest of all 22 runners, 0.8s slower than Rio Haryanto who completed just eight laps for Manor due to a reliability issue.

AS IT HAPPENED: Russian Grand Prix - FP1

Romain Grosjean column: Haas brought back down to earth

Chris Medland's 2016 Russian Grand Prix preview

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:38.127	32
02	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:38.949	31
03	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:39.175	19
04	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:39.332	18
05	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:39.365	14
06	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:39.650	24
07	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:39.802	24
08	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:40.218	26
09	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:40.287	22
10	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:40.654	21
11	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:40.663	19
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:40.771	18
13	Sergey Sirotkin	Renault	1:40.898	24
14	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:41.085	21
15	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:41.134	22
16	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:41.238	18
17	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:41.385	20
18	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:41.671	25
19	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:41.962	22
20	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:42.483	21
21	Rio Haryanto	Manor	1:42.687	8
22	Alfonso Celis	Force India	1:43.432	23

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.