Ferrari set early pace at Barcelona

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F1 Grand Prix, GP Spain, Circuit de Catalunyaes

Ferrari set the early pace in first practice at Barcelona as Sebastian Vettel was little more than a tenth quicker than his team mate Kimi Raikkonen. The duo were around half a second faster than Nico Rosberg, the first of the two Mercedes.

Both Ferrari's however set their best times on the soft tyres, whereas Mercedes did not yet fit those, instead opting to complete the entire session on the medium compound.

Behind Lewis Hamilton in fourth were both Red Bulls, with Ricciardo a tenth ahead of his new Dutch team mate, Max Verstappen. Carlos Sainz in the Toro Rosso meanwhile split the Williams cars and left his own new team mate, Daniil Kvyat, behind by half a second.

All in all, it proved a fairly clean session with few off-track moments. Lewis Hamilton also had a trouble free morning, thanks to a new MGU-H on his car on the back of technical issues at Russia and China.

Somewhat out of position was Jenson Button. The McLaren driver was complaining about handling problems and ended up 19th, more than 1.5s down on team mate Alonso who managed to get into the top 10 with the largely revised McLaren Honda MP4-31.

Results

..
Pos.No.DriverTeamTimeGapLaps
15Sebastian VettelFerrari1:23.951-22
27Kimi RäikkönenFerrari1:24.089+0.138s18
36Nico RosbergMercedes1:24.454+0.503s34
444Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:24.611+0.660s33
53Daniel RicciardoRed Bull Racing1:25.416+1.465s25
633Max VerstappenRed Bull Racing1:25.585+1.634s29
777Valtteri BottasWilliams1:25.672+1.721s36
855Carlos SainzToro Rosso1:26.078+2.127s19
919Felipe MassaWilliams1:26.186+2.235s32
1014Fernando AlonsoMclaren1:26.243+2.292s18
1120Kevin MagnussenRenault1:26.576+2.625s30
1226Daniil KvyatToro Rosso1:26.583+2.632s21
1327Nico HulkenbergForce India1:26.938+2.987s27
1411Sergio PerezForce India1:27.064+3.113s9
1512Felipe NasrSauber1:27.253+3.302s27
168Romain GrosjeanHaas1:27.258+3.307s17
1721Esteban GutierrezHaas1:27.283+3.332s18
189Marcus EricssonSauber1:27.392+3.441s24
1922Jenson ButtonMclaren1:27.610+3.659s19
2094Pascal WehrleinManor1:28.084+4.133s29
2188Rio HaryantoManor1:29.052+5.101s34
2245Esteban OconRenault--6