Nico Rosberg set the fastest time of opening practice for the Chinese Grand Prix, in a session that was red-flagged for a long period due to a number of unrelated tyre issues.

The tyre problems began early in the session when the left-rear of Felipe Massa’s Williams began to come apart as he went about his first run. The tyre was eventually shed as he went into Turn 6 and the Brazilian was pitched into a spin. He managed to make it back to the pits but with debris scattered across the track, the red flags briefly appeared.

After a spell in his team’s garage Massa reappeared with about half an hour left on the clock in the session. However, he soon suffered another left rear failure, the tyre apparently being damaged by contact with a body part on his car.

Massa was followed, on track and into trouble, by Renault’s Kevin Magnussen.

The Dane suffered a suspension failure on the same back straight and he too limped back to the pits, where because both cars had been running soft tyres a Pirelli investigation immediately began.

At this point the red flags came out and there a long delay as more debris was cleared from the track and the tyre checks continued. Pirelli later confirmed that none of the failures was caused by a tyre issue.

With seven minutes left on the clock, Rosberg, who had been second fastest behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton before the stoppage, emerged for a run on the soft tyres.

He was joined by Hamilton but it was the German who made the most of the compound, setting a time of 1:38.037 to take top spot ahead of the Briton.

Hamilton was left with P2, just over a tenth adrift of the championship leader. Sebastian Vettel was third fastest, though the Ferrari driver was half a second behind Hamilton on the same soft tyres.

Rosberg, though, wasn’t immune to problems and as the session drew to a close, he was forced to make his way slowly back to the team’s garage in ‘limp home’ mode due to a suspected power unit issue.

Daniel Ricciardo was fourth fastest, just over a second behind Rosberg, with the Australian also setting his best time on soft tyres. Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen finished fifth ahead of Daniil Kvyat in the second Red Bull, Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz Jr, the McLaren of Jenson Button, Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, and the second Toro Rosso of Max Verstappen.

2016 Chinese Grand Prix – Free Practice 1

1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:38.037 162 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:38.183 163 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:38.665 124 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:39.061 135 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:39.155 116 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1:39.625 147 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:39.676 128 Jenson Button McLaren 1:39.974 119 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:40.169 1310 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:40.232 1311 Sergio Perez Force India 1:40.347 1512 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:40.538 1113 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:40.828 1014 Romain Grosjean Haas 1:41.358 915 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:41.393 1816 Rio Haryanto Manor 1:41.614 2017 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1:41.816 1618 Pascal Wehrlein Manor 1:42.908 1419 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:42.980 820 Kevin Magnussen Renault 621 Esteban Gutierrez Haas 222 Felipe Massa Williams 4

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