(Mercedes AMG F1 Team)
The Mercedes AMG F1 Team's Nico Rosberg set the fastest time of this morning's Free Practice session at the Spa Francorchamps circuit ahead of Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix. Rosberg who currently leads the championship by eleven points from team mate Lewis Hamilton set a benchmark time of 1m 51.577s ending the session 0.097s ahead of Hamilton.
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso had an issue with his F14-T however despite this he managed to finish the session best of the rest 0.228s behind the Silver Arrows.
Jenson Button was right up there in his McLaren managing to split the two Ferrari's and was 0.827s behind Rosberg's fastest time. Kimi Raikkonen, who returns to Spa for the first time with Ferrari since he won here with the Italian team in 2009 suffered an temperature issue with his ERS unit managed to finish the session in 5th place albeit 1.241s off the pace set by Rosberg.
Sergio Perez had a solid start to his Friday for the Sahara Force India F1 Team as he finished the session just behind Raikkonen in 6th place for the Silverstone based outfit 1.326s behind Rosberg.
McLaren's Kevin Mganussen taking part in his first Spa Francorchamps practice session as an F1 driver did a solid job for the Woking based outfit as he finished the session in 7th place just ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in the second Sahara Force India.
Hungarian Grand Prix winner Infiniti Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo finished the session in 9th place ahead of his team mate reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel who ended the session in eleventh place after reporting a gearbox issue on his RB10. Williams Martini Racing's Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top ten.
Daniil Kvyat was 12th fastest for the Toro Rosso team just ahead of Roamin Grosjean who like Sebastian Vettel reported gearbox problems with his Lotus. Adrian Sutil was 14th fastest for the Sauber F1 Team finishing the session just ahead of the Williams Martini Racing FW36 of Felipe Massa.
Jean Eric Vergne who found out earlier this week that he is losing his Toro Rosso seat at the end of the season was 16th just ahead of Giedo Van Der Garde who driving the second Sauber in place of Esteban Gutierrez who will be back in the car for Free Practice two.
Pastor Maldonado was 18th fastest in the second Lotus just ahead of Jules Bianchi's Marussia. The Banbury based outfit's test and reserve driver Alexander Rossi who was set to race in place of Max Chilton this weekend was 1.4s seconds behind his team mate at the end of the session and will now sit out the rest of the weekend as Chilton's 'contractual issues' have been resolved.
It was a great morning's work for Caterham's new driver Andre Lotterer as he finished the session ahead of his team mate Marcus Ericsson who has been in the car all season and Lotterer's last outing in Formula One was in 2002 with the Jaguar Racing team when he was their official test driver.
The second Free Practice session gets underway at 1PM (Irish time)
© Ben Johnston 2014
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