F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Rosberg fastest by 0.5s after Magnussen fire

Nico Rosberg was 0.5s clear of team-mate Lewis Hamilton in first practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix in a session which was halted due to a fire in the pit lane.

Kevin Magnussen's Renault caused a 15-minute stoppage as a result of a fire which appeared to be caused by a fuel leak at the end of his installation laps. Returning to the pits, Magnussen was told to jump out of his car quickly in front of the garage, with flames starting to emerge from the airbox above his head. The car caught fire but Renault mechanics were quickly on the scene to try and bring it under control.

With the pit lane covered in extinguisher and smoke, the session was red flagged for 15 minutes before the fire was brought fully under control and the pit lane cleared enough for a restart.

Mercedes quickly got down to business, with Rosberg and Hamilton closely matched on their opening runs before the championship leader extended his advantage to half a second on the soft compound tyre. Both Mercedes drivers tried all three compounds during the session, but Hamilton's best lap came on the medium tyre.

A more comparable gap was the one Rosberg enjoyed over Kimi Raikkonen in third place. Raikkonen and team-mate Sebastian Vettel were separated by just 0.016s in third and fourth, but the pair were 1.1s adrift of Rosberg having set their best times on softs as well. Despite setting the fastest lap, Rosberg did have an off-track moment at Turn 11 as he caught some oversteer and ran through the gravel.

Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen sixth and seventh fastest as Ferrari enjoyed an early advantage, but Ricciardo's best time came on used hard tyres compared to mediums for his team-mate. The man splitting the two teams fighting for second in the constructors' championship was Fernando Alonso, who was running an updated Honda power unit in FP1.

Honda has spent two development tokens on its engine block and exhaust, making them more lightweight and robust, and Alonso was less than 0.2s off Vettel's best time in the opening session. Only Alonso has the new power unit, and Honda will now make a decision on whether to keep the upgrade in the car for the second session.

Nico Hulkenberg, Sergio Perez and Jenson Button rounded out the top ten, although all three were more than two seconds adrift of Rosberg's best time.

After the drama of Magnussen's fire, there was little in the way of notable problems, with Carlos Sainz the only driver other than Rosberg to go off track. Sainz also ran wide at Turn 11, with his Toro Rosso getting caught on the exit kerb and understeering wide, with the Spaniard having to slow the car in the gravel before bouncing along the grass to rejoin.

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:35.227	25
02	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:35.721	25
03	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:36.315	16
04	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:36.331	18
05	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:36.510	18
06	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:36.753	27
07	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:36.973	26
08	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:37.513	26
09	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:37.601	27
10	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:37.613	20
11	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:37.847	29
12	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:37.861	17
13	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:37.886	22
14	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:37.921	20
15	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:38.055	25
16	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:38.184	18
17	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:38.313	20
18	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:38.339	24
19	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:39.148	23
20	Esteban Ocon	Manor	1:40.036	28
21	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:40.627	26
22	Kevin Magnussen	Renault		2

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.