Despite Mercedes playing down their chances of repeating last years Chinese Grand Prix victory, the leaderboard after FP1 had a familiar look to it with Nico Rosberg the fastest driver on view.
Half a second behind him, team-mate Lewis Hamilton held P2 and then a further half-second back, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were P3 and P4 respectively for Red Bull Racing.
Fernando Alonso slotted into fifth for Ferrari, followed by the improving McLaren of Jenson Button and then Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari. Adrian Sutil was eighth for Force India, with Romain Grosjeans Lotus separating him from tenth-placed team-mate Paul di Resta.
The session got off to a typically slow start. After an installation lap the expected front runners retired to the garages, waiting for the track to rubber-in. One of those to go out early was Ma Qing Hua, running as a Friday driver for Caterham after four Friday appearances last year for HRT. He was replacing Charles Pic for the session.
Serious running started with half an hour gone and Jenson Button was the early pacesetter with a time of 1:41.798though at that point Red Bull, Ferrari, Lotus and Mercedes had not ventured out of the garage. When they did, Kimi Rikknen had a spin at turn nine, the first of the session. With wide runoffs available at the Shanghai International Circuit, he was followed by many others as they tested the limits of the track.
Webber rose to P1 with 50 minutes of the session run, lowering the bar to 1:37.658 but that was soon eclipsed by Hamilton and Rosberg and the latters time of 1:36.717 stood until the end of the session. With the leading cars running long-run simulations on the medium tyre, no-one improved in the last half-hour and the order stayed static until the flag.
FIA Formula One Chinese Grand Prix 2013 - Free Practice 1 Times1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:36.717 2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:37.171 3 Mark Webber Red Bull Racing 1:37.658 4 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:37.9425 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:37.965 6 Jenson Button McLaren 1:38.0697 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:38.0958 Adrian Sutil Force India 1:38.125 9 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:38.39810 Paul di Resta Force India 1:38.561 11 Kimi Rikknen Lotus 1:38.79012 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:39.05713 Pastor Maldonado Williams 1:39.15814 Nico Hlkenberg Sauber 1:39.18015 Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:39.33616 Sergio Prez McLaren 1:39.36017 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:39.39218 Esteban Gutirrez Sauber 1:40.03219 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:41.96620 Max Chilton Marussia 1:42.05621 Giedo van der Garde Caterham 1:42.08322 Qing Hua Ma Caterham 1:43.545
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