Mercedes began the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend as they ended the first race, by setting the pace around the Sepang International Circuit.
Lewis Hamilton’s lap of 1’40.691 was the fastest during the first session despite the Mercedes driver giving away some time in the middle of the lap.
He was split from team mate Nico Rosberg at the top of the times by Kimi Raikkonen, who was second fastest for Ferrari. The McLaren pair completed the top five.
But the Malaysian heat took its toll on the teams, especially Lotus, who suffered another desperate day. Romain Grosjean’s car came to a stop halfway around his second lap early in the session, and he didn’t return to the track until the final ten minutes.
Pastor Maldonado had also hit trouble on his second lap a few minutes earlier. His car was visibly smoking on the back straight, and though Maldonado was advised to bring it to a stop he managed to coast far enough into the pit entrance that the marshals were able to push him the rest of the way so his team could recover him.
But Lotus weren’t the only team to hit trouble. Kevin Magnussen had a similar experience to Maldonado at the pit entry when his McLaren went into ‘recovery mode’ shortly after he set the fastest time during the second half of the session.
Sergio Perez also failed to set a time after being sidelined by a fuel pressure problem following his first run of the day.
The tricky handling of the new cars also caught out several drivers. Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa had similar spins at turn eight, the rear of their cars snapping away as they got onto the power.
Adrian Sutil had a strange spin on his way into the pits early on the session. Both Sauber drivers appeared to struggle with the C33’s handling, particularly in the quicker corners.
Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei
Kanj
28th March 2014, 3:41
Kimi was nowhere to be found earlier while Alo was beasting. As soon as the dust kick in and became oversteery, Kimi came b alive while Alo spun.
Gonna be a headache for team in term of choosing the right path for car development when their drivers are so polar opposite from each other on and off track.
Good fun for fans though.
Sankalp Sharma (@sankalp88)
28th March 2014, 3:50
Mercs are going to blow everyone away! :(
Chris (@tophercheese21)
28th March 2014, 4:14
I’d like to see some closer racing for the lead, so hopefully Lewis and Nico can battle it out. But at the same time, it’s really nice to see Red Bull get a taste of their own medicine for once.
Guest
28th March 2014, 4:52
Practice 1 times already tell the winner eh?
Kingshark (@kingshark)
28th March 2014, 5:38
Mercedes domination is far more entertaining than Red Bull dominated because we actually have an interesting scrap for the WDC.
Breno (@austus)
28th March 2014, 12:38
Like that interesting Hamilton-Rosberg scrap for 3rd place last year?
KwekuQ (@kwekuq)
28th March 2014, 4:13
Expected from Merc and Lewis. My money is still on Rosberg for the win again this weekend.
bull mello (@bullmello)
28th March 2014, 4:15
Really sad to see such a meltdown (nearly literally too) by Lotus. Guess it’s a glaringly obvious statement that their money problems during development and top key personnel losses haven’t done them any good.
AdrianMorse (@adrianmorse)
28th March 2014, 5:33
Not too many laps by any of the drivers, looks like they don’t want to stress their engines.
uan (@uan)
28th March 2014, 5:43
@adrianmorse
so true. It’s ironic, each car is given an extra set of tires in FP1 to encourage more running, but because they have so few engines (or PUs) this year and reliability is such a huge issue, teams are running less. Engine limited, not tire limited as in the past.
Teams should be given 1 or 2 engines that they can use for FP on Friday’s, that don’t count against their total.
Alexander (@)
28th March 2014, 6:06
@uan @adrianmorse Actually only Vettel did over 20 laps last year so most drivers got plenty of laps!
KaIIe (@kaiie)
28th March 2014, 5:51
I can’t remember the last time I’ve enjoyed watching a free practice session this much. Every time a car was on screen, it was sliding, locking wheels, and generally doing things we haven’t seen in the past few years. Let’s hope this is due to the new rules instead of just a slippery track.
Aaron
28th March 2014, 7:29
I do hope it goes back to racing car “drivers” instead of racing car “steerers”.
Gdon (@gdon)
28th March 2014, 8:01
OOPs first pratice it should say.
Gdon (@gdon)
28th March 2014, 8:02
Sorry my bad..need a coffee