Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFormula 1

Rosberg fastest as Sauber, Manor fail to run

Nico Rosberg set the fastest time of the opening practice session for the Australian Grand Prix as Sauber and Manor both failed to run.

Mercedes was predictably quick throughout the opening session, with Rosberg edging out team-mate Lewis Hamilton by just 0.029s in Melbourne. The two were significantly quicker than the rest of the field, with an advantage of more than a second over Valtteri Bottas in third place.

However, the main focus was on the bottom of the timing screens as four cars failed to run at all. Sauber continues to be embroiled in a court battle with Giedo van der Garde and as a result both cars stayed in the garage with further proceedings set to take place in the afternoon.

Manor was the other team to be confined to the garage for the whole session, with the team experiencing software issues with its Ferrari power unit. Manor is running the 2014 unit and has been facing a race against time to prepare for the opening race having exited administration in February.

Another team to struggle was McLaren, with further Honda problems limiting running. Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen completed just 13 laps between them as the team had to end running early, with Button's best time almost five seconds slower than Rosberg.

While three teams were heavily limited in terms of mileage, Toro Rosso ensured both its rookie drivers completed plenty of laps as Carlos Sainz Jr was fourth quickest and Max Verstappen sixth with 31 laps each. Sebastian Vettel split the two STR10s, with all three drivers over 1.4s off the pace.

Felipe Massa was seventh after a long spell in the Williams garage, finishing the opening session ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, Pastor Maldonado and Daniel Ricciardo. The home favourite didn't enjoy the smoothest session as he completed just nine laps, spinning at the penultimate corner having put two wheels on the grass and complaining of drivability issues.

Aside from Ricciardo and the two McLarens, Romain Grosjean was the other driver to fail to reach double figures during the opening session as he was limited to five laps.

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
01.	N. Rosberg	Mercedes	1:29.557		19
02.	L. Hamilton	Mercedes	1:29.586	0.029	19
03.	V. Bottas	Williams	1:30.748	1.191	20
04.	C. Sainz Jr	Toro Rosso	1:31.014	1.457	32
05.	S. Vettel	Ferrari	1:31.029	1.472	13
06.	M. Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:31.067	1.510	31
07.	F. Massa	Williams	1:31.188	1.631	19
08.	K. Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:31.310	1.753	14
09.	P. Maldonado	Lotus	1:31.451	1.894	22
10.	D. Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:31.570	2.013	9
11.	D. Kvyat	Red Bull	1:32.073	2.516	18
12.	S. Perez	Force India	1:32.247	2.690	22
13.	N. Hulkenberg	Force India	1:32.261	2.704	19
14.	J. Button	McLaren	1:34.542	4.985	6
15.	K. Magnussen	McLaren	1:34.785	5.228	7
16.	R. Grosjean	Lotus			5
17.	M. Ericsson	Sauber
18.	F. Nasr	Sauber
19.	W. Stevens	Manor
20.	R. Merhi	Manor

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.