Russian GP: Free Practice 1 - Re-Cap & Results

The first practice session of the Russian GP was off to a not-so-great start due to a huge oil spill on the circuit from a sweeping truck. It delayed the session for 30 minutes and the session itself was not extended, making running time only an hour long. Bad news for the drivers as they also knew rain would be coming around FP2.

    Jolyon Palmer was in this session in place of Romain Grosjean & rumour has it that Palmer is in the running for the second Lotus seat, however, Lotus is staying hush about who will pair Pastor Maldonado in the 2016 season. Also back in a car this weekend is Roberto Merhi, while Alexander Rossi does his GP2 duties. Rossi will be back for Mexico, Austin & Brazil, while Merhi will finish of the season in Abu Dhabi.

    It was a good day for Sahara Force India with Nico Hulkenberg setting the fastest time & Team-mate, Sergio Perez, ending the session in 4th. The updates to their cars are proving good and the drivers seem to agree the cars are running much better than in the beginning of the season.

    However, the rain came early and times were not as fast as they could be in dry weather. Running was fairly limited, but everyone managed to set a time and gather up some data for the teams.

Here are the times from the session

TIMES:

1. Nico Hulkenberg - 1:44.355 / Force India-Mercedes
2. Nico Rosberg - 1:44.407 / Mercedes-Mercedes
3. Sebastian Vettel - 1:44.986 / Ferrari-Ferrari
4. Sergio Perez - 1:45.146 / Force India-Mercedes
5. Daniel Ricciardo - 1:45.233 / Red Bull-Renault
6. Carlos Sainz - 1:45.488 / Toro Rosso-Renault
7. Lewis Hamilton - 1:45.691 / Mercedes-Mercedes
8. Valtteri Bottas - 1:45.746 / Williams-Mercedes
9. Max Verstappen - 1:46.203 / Toro Rosso-Renault
10. Kimi Raikkonen - 1:46.215 / Ferrari-Ferrari
11. Jenson Button - 1:46.231 / McLaren-Honda
12. Felipe Massa - 1:46.333 / Williams-Mercedes
13. Felipe Nasr - 1:46.747 / Sauber-Ferrari
14. Fernando Alonso - 1:47.443 / McLaren-Honda
15. Pastor Maldonado - 1:48.006 / Lotus-Mercedes
16. Daniil Kvyat - 1:48.096 / Red Bull-Renault
17. Jolyon Palmer* - 1:49.094 / Lotus-Mercedes
18. Roberto Merhi - 1:52.994 / Manor-Ferrari
19. Marcus Ericsson - 1:54.272 / Sauber-Ferrari
20. Will Stevens - 1:58.254 / Manor-Ferrari

* - Only driving in this session.

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Article Written By: Amy Hawk
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