Mercedes regained its all too familiar position at the top of the F1 timesheets during Friday practice in China after being trumped by Ferrari at Sepang a fortnight ago.
On a set of Pirelli's soft tyres, Lewis Hamilton clocked the Shanghai International Circuit in 1:37.219 to reassert Mercedes’ position as F1’s leading team.
The result in Malaysia had served as a wake up call for the Brackley based squad who lost the race 'fair and square', in the words of team co-boss Toto Wolff. Since then, the Austrian has vowed to raise the game of his squad to retain both the world titles.
Ferrari further away from the front
Ferrari - who took a breakthrough victory in Malaysia - again looked close with Raikkonen ending within half a second of Hamilton’s chart topping laptime. Mercedes, however, enjoyed a comfortable 1 second margin on the prime tyres in FP1 and it would be interesting to see which tyre they use more often on Sunday.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo finished five tenths adrift of Raikkonen in third place to bring some encouragements for the Austrian outfit. His teammate Daniil Kvyat crashed into turn 14 with an apparent brake failure. The team had reverted to its 2014 supplier Brembo after encountering problems with its new partner during the heat of Malaysia.
Yesterday, Red Bull’s global boss reiterated F1 exit threats and put the entire blame on Renault for their misery, despite some obvious weaknesses in the RB11 chassis.
Williams too are unable to replicate their 2014 pace and are clearly frustrated to lose ground on Ferrari, whom they comfortably outpaced with a string of podium finishes in the latter part of the season.
Valtteri Bottas who declared himself 100% fit for the Sunday’s race was team’s lead running in practice, but with a time that was over 1.5 seconds slower than the quickest time on board.
However, the Finn was upbeat about Williams’ possible outcome in the race, saying the cooler conditions of Shanghai would be suitable for the FW37.
Meanwhile, Felipe Massa lost control in the sister Williams and ended up grazing the barriers at turn 14, grinding his day to a halt.
Saubers were again in the mix as they assert their authority as the best midfielder with Felipe Nasr eighth quickest and Marcus Ericsson trailing his Brazilian teammate in 12th place.
Lotus positioned itself between the two Saubers with Romain Grosjean leading the charge for Team Enstone.
Jenson Button showed encouraging form in the Honda powered MP4-30, clocking the tenth fastest time of the day. The Briton was two seconds down on the fastest time of the session with Fernando Alonso a further five tenths slower in 12th place.
Both the drivers retired from the previous race due to separate issues related to the power unit and are keen on reaching the chequered flag this time around.
Toro Rosso - who recorded a double points finish in Sepang - surprisingly trailed in 14th and 15th places, forcing chief engineer Phil Charles to admit that his squad ‘has a lot of work to do tonight’.
Painful times ahead for Force India
Force India encountered technical problems with both its car in the afternoon but the issues failed to cloud the fact the team has produced one of the slowest cars on the grid.
Earlier this week, deputy chief Bob Fernley announced that the team has delayed the introduction of the ‘B-spec’ VJM08 until June’s Austrian Grand Prix. Till then, drivers Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg have to limit the damage with what is effectively a launch-spec car.
And finally, Manor managed to run both cars at the same time with Roberto Merhi leading Will Stevens after the latter lost a heap of time with power unit related issues.
The Shanghai Circuit has the longest straight on the calendar and puts a lot of strain on the front left tyre, thanks to some long corners in sector 1. Track temperatures will be around 20C cooler than Sepang and rear tyres won’t be a limiting factor, as was the case last time around.
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