Brazil – Free Practice 1: Rosberg ahead of Hamilton and Kvyat, Juncadella in the tires

The sky over Brazil is cloudy as the weekend of the Brazilian Grand Prix is about to begin. Some regular drivers are giving up their seats to young drivers: Daniel Juncadella at Force India, Max Verstappen at Toro Rosso, and Felipe Nasr at Williams temporarily replace Sergio Pérez, Jean-Eric Vergne, and Valtteri Bottas.

The session is underway and the two Lotus drivers are the first to head out for a start procedure. Jenson Button, who doesn’t attempt a start, completes a reconnaissance lap before having to stop as he returns to the pits, experiencing a total engine shutdown. His teammate Kevin Magnussen is equipped with Pitot tubes. Verstappen is the first driver to set a time, clocking in at 1:19.999, despite a lap filled with errors: the resurfaced track seems quite slippery. The Dutchman improves his time by 1.2 seconds on his second lap. Fernando Alonso does better by half a second and takes the lead.

Juncadella gets caught out in Ferradura, spinning out. He’s not the first driver to struggle with this braking, and not the last as Grosjean has a scare at the same spot moments later. At the front, Hamilton sets a 1:14.172, succeeding Rosberg who, in the following lap, clocks a 1:14.001 to climb back to the top of the timesheets. It doesn’t last long either, as the championship leader improves by half a second as the first half-hour of this session comes to an end.

After 30 minutes, Hamilton leads Rosberg, Kvyat, Alonso, and Vettel. At McLaren, Button’s MP4-29 is not at all ready to get back on track. Magnussen, on the other hand, is alone on the track making sparks, literally! His floor is scraping abundantly on the circuit. Most of the drivers have returned to the track for stints of varying lengths. Verstappen takes the third fastest time but seems to be struggling with his Toro Rosso. He even goes into a big slide at Mergulho. Rosberg takes advantage to set the fastest time.

After one hour, Rosberg leads Hamilton, Verstappen, Maldonado, and Räikkönen. Yellow flags: Juncedalla misses his braking in the second sector and crashes into the tires. He is unharmed, but the red flag is waved. The session resumes with 20 minutes remaining: Hamilton is among the first to come out. Subsequently, long stints follow one another. Verstappen is the highlight of this end of the session: at the end of the straight, he misses his braking and goes straight into the runoff area where he navigates around the medical car to rejoin the old part of the circuit and return to the track. Räikkönen makes multiple mistakes towards the end of the session and has a big scare in the penultimate corner.

The checkered flag comes down: Nico Rosberg beats Lewis Hamilton and Daniil Kvyat.