Suzuka, FP1: Advantage Rosberg as practice gets underway in Japan

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.