Practice One – Rosberg leads Mercedes one-two in rainy Brazil

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

Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired Gap Laps
1 9 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:24.781 14
2 10 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:25.230 0.449 13
3 1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing-Renault 1:25.387 0.606 17
4 5 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:25.391 0.610 25
5 3 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:25.593 0.812 13
6 2 Mark Webber Red Bull Racing-Renault 1:25.797 1.016 17
7 6 Sergio Perez McLaren-Mercedes 1:25.946 1.165 15
8 19 Daniil Kvyat STR-Ferrari 1:26.064 1.283 17
9 7 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 1:26.133 1.352 31
10 11 Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari 1:26.232 1.451 17
11 4 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:26.248 1.467 15
12 12 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1:26.326 1.545 28
13 8 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1:26.570 1.789 28
14 18 Jean-Eric Vergne STR-Ferrari 1:26.593 1.812 22
15 15 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:27.115 2.334 25
16 17 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1:27.269 2.488 23
17 16 Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1:27.358 2.577 23
18 14 James Calado Force India-Mercedes 1:27.436 2.655 9
19 21 Giedo van der Garde Caterham-Renault 1:28.107 3.326 18
20 20 Charles Pic Caterham-Renault 1:28.199 3.418 17
21 22 Jules Bianchi Marussia-Cosworth 1:30.004 5.223 24
22 23 Rodolfo Gonzalez Marussia-Cosworth 1:32.646 7.865 19