On the day Mercedes renamed their car the W05 Hybrid, Rosberg could only
manage fifth after he bowed out early with problems with his hybrid power
unit.
Vettel meanwhile completed only a handful of laps before an electrical issue
put him out of the session with just 25 minutes gone.
His day went from bad to worse when the team discovered that the fault had
damaged a wiring loom. These new cars are so complicated, and so tightly
packaged, that it was not possible for Red Bull to fix the problem before
the start of the second session.
“The team will use the time to fix it to be ready for FP3 tomorrow,” the team
said in a short statement.
The biggest drama of FP1 came in a bizarre and somewhat terrifying moment for
Sergio Perez, when, for no discernible reason, his left mirror became
detached from his Force India.
The mirror was left dangling against the cockpit before the Mexican grabbed
hold of it and pulled into the pits for repairs.
“Well, that’ll take some attention in the pits,” the team wrote on Twitter.
“Just a quick fix for Sergio Perez and he’ll be straight back on track!” The
former McLaren driver ended the morning ninth fastest.
The afternoon practice season began as a troublesome one for Britain’s Max
Chilton. The man who has finished every Grand Prix he has entered since his
debut last year suffered engine problems with his Marussia and had not set a
time with more than half an hour gone.
But it was a serene 90 minutes of running for Mercedes. Hamilton and Rosberg
were at the top of the timesheets for the whole session, followed by
Ricciardo and then the two Ferraris.
It was another encouraging session for McLaren, who were both comfortably
inside the top 10 but still some way off the Mercedes pace.
Hamilton ended the day with a 1min 25.5sec lap, while Rosberg completed the
4.6km circuit in 1min 25.9sec.