The rain that was expected today arrived early, in time to leave the track wet for the entire 90 minutes of opening practice at Interlagos. And after Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton had set the initial pace for Mercedes, further rain prevented anyone from going quicker, though an improvement in conditions in the final 20 minutes enabled Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel to jump ahead of McLaren’s Jenson Button for third.

Rosberg set the pace with 1m 24.781s, using Pirelli’s intermediate tyres like almost everyone else, though Vettel briefly tried the hards and then did one lap on the prototype 2014 hard tyres before the rain worsened and he reverted to inters. His Red Bull was equipped with a lot of monitoring equipment, hence the attempt at a comparison.

Rosberg was the only driver to dip beneath 1m 25s, whilst Hamilton, who spun in Turn 3 on his first attempt to go fast, worked down to 1m 25.230s for second. Vettel, meanwhile, improved to 1m 25.387s to pip Button’s earlier 1m 25.391s.

Fernando Alonso was click here for more