Rosberg leads Mercedes 1-2 in opening Spa practice

Nico Rosberg happy after FP1

Nico Rosberg turned a la of 1m48.348s to lead opening practice for the Belgium GP at Spa by a comfortable margin over Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton. It was a clean session for Mercedes and their drivers appeared on rails, but both Rosberg and Hamilton used the super-softs in FP1.

Hamilton will take a 15-grid penalty because his fresh power unit featured the use of a sixth MGU-H and turbo.

Kimi Raikkonen was third quick for Ferrari at 1m49.147s, just 1/10th of a sec behind Hamilton but on softs, not super-softs.

Sergio Perez continued his good form in 4th for Force India while Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top-5 in the 2nd Ferrari 1.4 sec behind Rosberg on soft tires.

In his first practice with Manor, Esteban Ocon outpaced teammate Pascal Wehrlein by nearly a second as he finished 16th quickest. Ocon beat Verstappen in F3 for the title so he is the real deal. Keep an eye on him

Fernando Alonso never put up a time and the team has to change his Honda engine.

Three drivers ran the halo for the first time – Rosberg, Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz Jr.

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