Nico Rosberg went quickest in opening practice for this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, eclipsing Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton by two tenths of a second.
The Mercedes pair set their best times on the soft tyre, as did third-placed Sebastian Vettel. The Ferrari driver ended the session almost 1.1s adrift of Hamilton, however. Kimi Raikkonen was fourth quickest, just under three tenths behind his team-mate. The Finn also set his best time on the soft tyre.
Red Bull Racing, meanwhile, chose to avoid the yellow-banded Pirelli compound during the session. The result was that while Daniel Ricciardo was fifth for the Renault-powered outfit he was 0.295 behind Raikkonen and 1.681 behind Hamilton. Team-mate Max Verstappen was sixth, just over two tenths further back.
Behind the Mercedes, Ferraris and Red Bulls came Force India, with Nico Hulkenberg taking seventh place, two seconds down on Hamilton’s benchmark and Sergio Perez eighth.
Fernando Alonso was ninth quickest though he his session was cut short when he hit the barriers early on and was forced to quit the session due to exhaust damage. He completed just 10 laps across the 90 minutes.
Tenth place in the session went to Valtteri Bottas, with the Williams man finishing just ahead of the twin Toro Rossos of Daniil Kvyat and Carlos Sainz. Jenson Button was 13th in the second McLaren with Haas’ Romain Grosjean in P14. The Frenchman has a near miss midway through the session when he misjudged the Degner curves and went off into the gravel trap. He was lucky, however, in that he escaped damage, as his car barely touched nosed into the barrier, and he was able to reverse out of the gravel to rejoin the action.
2016 Japanese Grand Prix – Free Practice 11 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:32.431 242 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:32.646 213 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:33.525 194 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:33.817 175 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:34.112 236 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 1:34.379 267 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:34.530 288 Sergio Perez Force India 1:34.767 309 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:35.003 1010 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:35.381 3111 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:35.446 2312 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:35.672 2713 Jenson Button McLaren 1:35.677 2414 Romain Grosjean Haas 1:35.688 1715 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:35.967 1516 Felipe Massa Williams 1:36.169 2317 Esteban Gutierrez Haas 1:36.219 2118 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:36.294 1919 Kevin Magnussen Renault 1:36.822 3020 Esteban Ocon Manor 1:37.797 2921 Pascal Wehrlein Manor 1:37.966 2422 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1:37.992 13
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