Rosberg three tenths quicker than Hamilton, who makes several errors; Gearbox glitch stops Sebastian Vettel; Disrupted running for McLaren's Fernando Alonso after Spaniard takes fifth Honda engine
Friday 19 June 2015 13:53, UK
Nico Rosberg got the jump on Lewis Hamilton on the opening morning of action at the Austrian GP as Mercedes made a dominant start to the weekend as their would-be rivals – again – hit trouble.
Rosberg, the race winner on F1’s return to the revamped and renamed Red Bull Ring last year, immediately slipped into the groove around the undulating lap and set the pace from his championship-leading Mercedes team-mate by three tenths of a second.
While Rosberg set a marker of 1:10.401 – a time some eight tenths quicker than last year’s P1 benchmark – Hamilton was left chasing from the off. Although twice on laps which were on course to raise the timesheet bar, Hamilton ran wide at the penultimate corner and then straight on in a plume of tyre smoke at Turn One.
Mistakes around the short but challenging circuit proved Hamilton’s undoing in qualifying last year and he admitted on Thursday that his challenge was to complete an error-free weekend as he attempts to add a win in Austria to his CV at the second attempt.
Despite those mistakes, Hamilton still ended a comfortable second to the sister W06 as the Silver Arrows made a particularly dominant start to Friday. Ferrari, as has become habitual in 2015, were third-fastest but Kimi Raikkonen trailed Rosberg by 0.6s, while Sebastian Vettel completed just four laps and propped up the timesheet after a suspected gearbox failure stopped his SF15-T on the run to Turn Three.
Reliability concerns had dominated much of the build-up to practice with Red Bull and McLaren both taking engine penalties with their respective struggling cars, but the home team at least made a surprisingly encouraging start at their own track as Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo wound up sixth and seventh respectively.
Valtteri Bottas, who reckons upgrades to Williams’ FW37 this weekend will allow them to challenge Ferrari, took fourth behind Raikkonen with Felipe Massa, who almost collected an inattentive Maurizio Arrivabene in the pitlane, ninth.
On a heavily overcast morning in the mountainous region of Spielberg following overnight rain, McLaren's already grim season got no better as what Eric Boullier later told Sky Sports F1 was a "systems problem" had Fernando Alonso's MP4-30 crawling down the pitlane at the end of its installation lap. He lost more than an hour of track time, eventually finishing just behind team-mate Jenson Button in 16th and 17th places.
Alonso's car had already been equipped with fifth versions of three different power unit elements - engine, turbocharger and MGU-H - which will trigger a combined 20-place grid penalty. His limited P1 running also meant McLaren delayed the testing of their new shorter nose until the afternoon's session.
Don’t miss Sky Sports F1’s exclusively live coverage of the 2015 Austrian GP. The race begins at 1pm on Sunday, with build-up underway from 11.30am. No Sky Sports? No problem! Watch the Austrian GP for £6.99 with NOW TV
