Japan: Hamilton leads Mercedes one-two first practice
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| Lewis Hamilton |
Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg gave Mercedes a one-two ahead of the Red Bulls in the opening practice at Suzuka for the Japanese GP.
Sebastian Vettel was the fastest for Red Bull in third, 0.611s off the pace.
His teammate Mark Webber took fourth, followed by Felipe Massa.
As a consequence of Jules Bianchi’s accident in this morning’s Free Practice 1 session, his allocated chassis MR02-02 has sustained damage that is repairable but not in sufficient time for him to take part in Free Practice 2. Jules will therefore sit out this afternoon’s session.
The spare chassis will be built up in time for Jules to resume running in Free Practice 3 on Saturday morning.
Results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Behind | Laps |
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1m34.157s | +0.000s | 19 |
| 2 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1m34.487s | +0.330s | 19 |
| 3 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1m34.768s | +0.611s | 24 |
| 4 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1m34.787s | +0.630s | 20 |
| 5 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1m35.126s | +0.969s | 14 |
| 6 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1m35.154s | +0.997s | 16 |
| 7 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Renault | 1m35.179s | +1.022s | 15 |
| 8 | Kimi Raikkonen | Lotus-Renault | 1m35.364s | +1.207s | 17 |
| 9 | Sergio Perez | McLaren-Mercedes | 1m35.450s | +1.293s | 27 |
| 10 | Daniel Ricciardo | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1m35.635s | +1.478s | 19 |
| 11 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1m35.868s | +1.711s | 22 |
| 12 | Nico Hülkenberg | Sauber-Ferrari | 1m35.900s | +1.743s | 18 |
| 13 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1m36.066s | +1.909s | 20 |
| 14 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1m36.165s | +2.008s | 19 |
| 15 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams-Renault | 1m36.178s | +2.021s | 12 |
| 16 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams-Renault | 1m36.340s | +2.183s | 23 |
| 17 | Paul Di Resta | Force India-Mercedes | 1m36.399s | +2.242s | 18 |
| 18 | Esteban Gutierrez | Sauber-Ferrari | 1m36.760s | +2.603s | 22 |
| 19 | Heikki Kovalainen | Caterham-Renault | 1m37.595s | +3.438s | 22 |
| 20 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia-Cosworth | 1m37.629s | +3.472s | 8 |
| 21 | Giedo van der Garde | Caterham-Renault | 1m38.025s | +3.868s | 15 |
| 22 | Max Chilton | Marussia-Cosworth | 1m38.763s | +4.606s | 18 |