Germany’s Nico Rosberg went fastest in the two practice sessions in Melbourne as the 2015 Formula 1 season got underway at the city’s Albert Park circuit.
In FP1, Rosberg’s best lap of 1m29.557 edged out Mercedes AMG’s teammate and reigning champion Lewis Hamilton by two hundredths of a second. Valtteri Bottas of the Williams team secured third place ahead of the surprising Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso, Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari and Max Verstappen, F1’s youngest ever driver at just 17 years of age, sixth in the other Toro Rosso.
Behind Verstappen, Felipe Massa was seventh in the second Williams-Mercedes, while Kimi Raikkonen was eighth fastest in the other Ferrari. Rosberg repeated his performance in FP2, setting a time of 1m27.697 lap to go 0.1s faster than Hamilton.
The Mercedes W06s were over a second faster than the rest during session one but the gap came down slightly when cars switched to soft compound tires during the session. Rosberg’s advantage over the third fastest driver, Vettel, was 0.715 second with Raikkonen in fourth place. Bottas was fifth fastest for Williams and although Daniil Kvyat was sixth for Red Bull Racing, the gap between the two stood at almost 8/10ths of a second.
Both teams also struggled with reliability, with Felipe Massa sidelined by a water leak on his Williams FW37 while crowd favourite Daniel Ricciardo also played no part in the session after his Red Bull RB11 needed a power unit change. It was a tough day for McLaren-Honda. Kevin Magnussen hit the barriers at Turn 6, admitting it was his mistake. His teammate Jenson Button drove as hard as he could until a loss of power also ended his running. The Briton never climbed higher than 13th place and ended the session about 3.7s slower than Rosberg.
2015 Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne’s Friday’s 1st practice session*: 1 - Nico Rosberg (Mercedes W06) - 1m29.557 - 20 laps 2 - Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes W06) - 1m29.586 - 20 3 - Valtteri Bottas (Williams FW37-Mercedes) - 1m30.748 - 20 4 - Carlos Sainz (Toro Rosso STR10-Renault) - 1m31.014 - 33 5 - Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari SF15-T) - 1m31.029 - 15 6 - Max Verstappen (Toro Rosso STR10-Renault) - 1m31.067 - 32 7 - Felipe Massa (Williams FW37-Mercedes) - 1m31.188 - 19 8 - Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari SF15-T) - 1m31.310 - 15 9 - Pastor Maldonado (Lotus E23-Mercedes) - 1m31.451 - 22 10 - Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull RB11-Renault) - 1m31.570 - 10 11 - Daniil Kvyat (Red Bull RB11-Renault) - 1m32.073 - 19 12 - Sergio Perez (Force India VJM08-Mercedes) - 1m32.247 - 23 13 - Nico Hulkenberg (Force India VJM08-Mercedes) - 1m32.261 - 20 14 - Jenson Button (McLaren MP4/30-Honda) - 1m34.542 - 7 15 - Kevin Magnussen (McLaren MP4/30-Honda) - 1m34.785 - 8 16 - Romain Grosjean (Lotus E23-Mercedes) - no time – 5 2015 Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne’s Friday’s 2nd practice session*: 1 - Nico Rosberg (Mercedes W06) - 1m27.697 - 28 laps 2 - Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes W06) - 1m27.797 - 24 3 - Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari SF15-T) - 1m28.412 - 33 4 - Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari SF15-T) - 1m28.842 - 33 5 - Valtteri Bottas (Williams FW37-Mercedes) - 1m29.265 - 32 6 - Daniil Kvyat (Red Bull RB10-Renault) - 1m30.016 - 27 7 - Carlos Sainz (Toro Rosso STR10-Renault) - 1m30.071 - 40 8 - Pastor Maldonado (Lotus E23-Mercedes) - 1m30.104 - 11 9 - Romain Grosjean (Lotus E23-Mercedes) - 1m30.205 - 36 10 - Nico Hulkenberg (Force India VJM08-Mercedes) - 1m30.473 - 30 11 - Felipe Nasr (Sauber C34-Ferrari) - 1m30.755 - 32 12 - Sergio Perez (Force India VJM08-Mercedes) - 1m30.980 - 32 13 - Jenson Button (McLaren MP4/30-Honda) - 1m31.387 - 21 14 - Max Verstappen (Toro Rosso STR10-Renault) - 1m31.395 - 6 15 - Marcus Ericsson (Williams FW37-Mercedes) - 1m32.303 - 14 16 - Kevin Magnussen (McLaren MP4/30-Honda) - 1m33.289 - 4 *Unofficial timing
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