Rosberg leads for Mercedes as Magnussen suffers fire

Nico Rosberg comfortably led the first practice session at the revised Sepang International Circuit.

However the 90-minute session was red-flagged for a quarter of an hour due to a serious fire on Kevin Magnussen’s Renault. The fire broke out after Magnussen’s first installation lap in the opening minutes of practice.

It took several minutes for the Renault mechanics to bring the fire under control. Magnussen did not return to the track during the session but team mate Jolyon Palmer was able to take part.

Due to the delay drivers were given extra time to use their initial set of tyres. Once running resumed the Mercedes drivers quickly took to the top of the time. Rosberg’s best time was over a second quicker than any of the team’s rivals could manage and 4.9 seconds faster than the best time from the same session last year.

Both the W07 drivers had minor offs during practice as they got to grips with the fully resurfaced circuit. Lewis Hamilton ended the session almost half a second down on his team mate.

There was much less between the two Ferrari drivers. Kimi Raikkonen was the quicker of the two, Sebastian Vettel complaining about poor tyre balance on one of his runs.

Fernando Alonso, who is using Honda’s new power unit for the first time this weekend, set the fifth-quickest time, putting his McLaren ahead of both Red Bulls. Jenson Button, who is still using the previous version, was tenth behind the Force Indias.

Pos.	No.	Driver	Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1’35.227		25
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’35.721	0.494	25
3	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1’36.315	1.088	16
4	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1’36.331	1.104	18
5	14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda	1’36.510	1.283	18
6	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull-TAG Heuer	1’36.753	1.526	27
7	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-TAG Heuer	1’36.973	1.746	26
8	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1’37.513	2.286	26
9	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1’37.601	2.374	27
10	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda	1’37.613	2.386	20
11	26	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’37.847	2.620	29
12	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1’37.861	2.634	17
13	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	1’37.886	2.659	22
14	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari	1’37.921	2.694	20
15	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’38.055	2.828	25
16	12	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari	1’38.184	2.957	18
17	9	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari	1’38.313	3.086	20
18	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1’38.339	3.112	24
19	30	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1’39.148	3.921	23
20	31	Esteban Ocon	Manor-Mercedes	1’40.036	4.809	28
21	94	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor-Mercedes	1’40.627	5.400	26

First practice visual gaps

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.

Grosjean: "Two weird things happened in that lap in turn 12 and 15 when the rear suddenly snapped. Interesting to have a look at that." #F1

— RaceFans Live (@racefanslive) September 30, 2016

Wehrlein: "Still too much understeer, especially medium-to-high speed. Nervous on exit but then understeer mid corner." #F1 #MalaysianGP

— RaceFans Live (@racefanslive) September 30, 2016

Kvyat: "Lack of traction, turn four main place, understeer five and six. But no basic problems at the rear if you know what I mean." #F1

— RaceFans Live (@racefanslive) September 30, 2016

Wehrein: "Something cannot be right." #F1 #MalaysianGP

— RaceFans Live (@racefanslive) September 30, 2016