Not only was he greeted with the news that he will face a 20-place grid penalty for changing an engine – given McLaren will qualify lower down, he will also have to take some extra penalties during the race – but he lost drive on his first lap out.
Fernando Alonso had a dreadful day with McLaren
The Spaniard crawled back to the pits before McLaren fixed yet another problem. Sebastian Vettel faced mechanical trouble too after just four laps, but the German was unable to run again until the afternoon.
Perhaps the most entertaining moment of the morning came when Maurizio Arrivabene, Vettel’s Ferrari team principal, was almost run over in the pit lane. With Williams’ Felipe Massa leaving his pit box, Arrivabene inexplicably walked across the tarmac, comically jumped in fright before getting out of the Brazilian’s way. The colourful Italian emerged unscathed.
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Out on the track, Hamilton ended 0.3s slower than Rosberg and was frustrated with constant calls from his engineers to change his car’s settings. The reigning champion protested: “How many changes do you guys want me to do, can I just focus on driving?”
The second session was closely contested at the front between the Ferraris of Vettel and Raikkonen and the Mercedes duo. McLaren endured another tough time, with Jenson Button reporting a “massive loss of power” with 40 minutes to go. It ended his day’s running.
In a frenetic end to the session, nobody improved, leaving Vettel quickest from Rosberg, Raikkonen, Pastor Maldonado and Hamilton. Alonso finished 16th and Button was 18th.