FP1 in Malaysia: Hamilton leads but Kimi is there

A first practice session with no rain and Alonso was the first man on track in his Ferrari. Amid typically hot and humid weather conditions, the field made good use of Pirelli’s additional set of Hard compound tyres, available to the drivers during the first half an hour of the 90-minute session.

McLaren have a new nose on the car this weekend, does not looks good but it seems to be more effective.

A very bad day at the office for Lotus with smoke from back of the Maldonando’s car. There were numerous off-track moments during the session, with Hamilton, Alonso, Massa, Adrian Sutil and Marcus Ericsson all suffering spins as the drivers tried to get to grips with their new cars on an open layout.

Too early to say more about the speed of the cars. For sure Mercedes are up there and McLaren looks also very good.

The upgrades for Williams weren’t ready in time so they might be struggle here. We don’t think Vettel and Red Bull shows everything they got, only 9 laps for the reigning World Champion. Maybe in FP2…

See the complets result of FP1 below:

Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired Gap Laps
1 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:40.691 19
2 7 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:40.843 0.152 20
3 6 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:41.028 0.337 19
4 22 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:41.111 0.420 20
5 20 Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1:41.274 0.583 18
6 25 Jean-Eric Vergne STR-Renault 1:41.402 0.711 15
7 1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing-Renault 1:41.523 0.832 9
8 27 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1:41.642 0.951 19
9 19 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1:41.686 0.995 23
10 77 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1:41.830 1.139 22
11 14 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:41.923 1.232 14
12 3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing-Renault 1:42.117 1.426 20
13 99 Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1:42.365 1.674 21
14 26 Daniil Kvyat STR-Renault 1:42.869 2.178 21
15 21 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1:42.904 2.213 23
16 17 Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 1:43.825 3.134 18
17 9 Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 1:45.775 5.084 24
18 4 Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 1:46.911 6.220 10
19 10 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 1:51.180 10.489 5
20 11 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes No time 2
21 13 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault No time 2
22 8 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault No time 4