Rosberg tops interrupted FP1 at Spa

Aug 21, 2015
2 min read

Nico Rosberg was the fastest man in the first practice session of the Belgian Grand Prix ahead of team mate Lewis Hamilton. Rosberg suffered a technical issue early in the session which kept him in the garage for some 25 minutes, meaning he did his fastest lap out of sync with other drivers.

There was a high level of focus surrounding Mercedes’ new rear wing, which links airflow around the rear of the car in order to increase downforce without the drag deficit. Spa offers a unique challenge in terms of downforce levels, as sectors 1 and 3 are largely flat out and sector 3 relies on high speed grip, change of direction and traction.

Contrary to what we expected, the Renault powered cars were in the top 10 for the session. Daniel Ricciardo put his Red Bull between Mercedes and Ferrari in 3rd with Daniil Kvyat 6th.

Red Bull have trimmed their wings so as to lower the drag on their car to compensate for the Renault engine’s lack of power, but they were still losing large chunks of time in the first sector before regaining some of it in the middle sector.

Toro Rosso were 7th and 8th with Max Verstappen ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr., on a similar strategy to Red Bull in terms of downforce levels.

Upgrades to cars where seen across the field, the most prominent of which were engine upgrades. Sauber have new elements of the mkII 2015 Ferrari engine, but not one identical to that in the back of the works Ferrari.

Honda also brought upgrades to their engine, which they claimed will allow them to match the power output of the Ferrari engine. It is unclear as to whether or not they were running the new engine during the morning session, but the McLaren remained one of the slowest cars in the speed trap.

It seemed that neither driver was happy with the balance of the car either, with Jenson Button complaining of understeer on the team radio.

Jolyon Palmer was in for Romain Grosjean for the session, but all eyes were on Pastor Maldonado when he lost the rear on the exit of Malmedy and hit the tyre wall. The accident left him with suspension damage down the right side of the E22. He was out for the remainder of FP1 and the session was red flagged for 10 minutes as they recovered the car.

Full timings