Germany – Free Practice 1: Behind Mercedes, Ferrari leads Red Bull and McLaren in ambush
The first free practice session of the weekend unsurprisingly demonstrated Mercedes' dominance, but what's more interesting is to be found further back in the top 10, with Ferrari ahead of Red Bull, while ForceIndia and Williams seem to be gradually relinquishing their places of honour to McLaren and Toro Rosso.
This morning’s event, Fernando Alonso was celebrating his 35th birthday shortly before the start of the session. Once it began, as if it were a gift given to him, he was the one who set the first time of the session, with a benchmark of 1’18″817. After that, the first few minutes were calm as the drivers took to the track to log times only after ten minutes.
A planned pause in #FP1 running for the boys… Time for a quick recap of that mega cake. Looks too good to eat! pic.twitter.com/nHLN98176D
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) 29 juillet 2016
It takes until the twentieth minute for hostilities to start gently and for the classification board to fill up. Once again, Ocon was behind the wheel of the Renault this Friday morning but in place of Palmer this time, and similarly, Leclerc took Gutierrez’s place behind the wheel of the Haas. Nasr is the last driver to record a first benchmark time.
Assessment after the first third of the session:
Rosberg holds the reference time with 1’17″030, Vettel follows him at +0’379 and Hamilton follows at +0’520.
#FP1 PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION (AFTER 30 MINS) #F1istZurück #F1 pic.twitter.com/CCTVKaoT0T
— Formula 1 (@F1) 29 juillet 2016
Shortly after, the first yellow flag of the session is waved at the 33rd minute, Bottas loses the Williams at the braking into the Hairpin and spins. We are gently approaching the midpoint of the session, and the cars return to the pits, the track gets a moment of respite after 40 minutes.
Mid-session report, the top 8 of these free practice sessions on Friday morning is the same as the top 8 of the first free practice in Hungary, except for Sainz in 8th place at the expense of Button, who moved to 9th place.
Rosberg reignites hostilities on the Hockenheimring after a brief 10 minutes of silence. On his first flying lap, he improves his benchmark time to record a lap of 1’15″517, a full second better than his pole position two years ago. A noticeable improvement in performance was anticipated two years after the last German Grand Prix, and it quickly made itself known.
New update before the last half hour:
The classification changes relatively little. After Rosberg’s run after the mid-session, the drivers completed another stint to improve previous times, and the stadium empties again. There are 21 minutes left, and only Kvyat, Perez, Magnussen, and Ocon are still on track. The Russian is then in 9th place, ahead of his teammate by 0.036 seconds.
There are 10 minutes left, the drivers are going out for one last stint but no improvement is in sight for now, only Räikkönen has completed a fast lap to reclaim 4th place from Verstappen.
Grosjean’s off-track excursion 2 minutes before the end of the session, after a wheel lock-up while braking for turn 6, he loses control of the Haas on the restart and grazes the Pirelli sign at the edge of the track. The incident is not serious, but radio exchanges with the team seem to indicate a rear suspension problem with the car.
End of the session, Mercedes dominates once again, Ferrari seems a bit better than Red Bull, with the reds in P3 and P4 and the blues following closely. Once again McLaren is behind these three teams and shows the progress made on the car. By placing P7 and P8, the Woking team delivers a strong performance on a circuit that favors speed, which is usually their weak point.
PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION (END OF #FP1): @MercedesAMGF1 dominant #F1istZurück 🇩🇪 #F1 pic.twitter.com/glJhJDFYVH
— Formula 1 (@F1) 29 juillet 2016
