» Rosberg tops FP1 at the Red Bull Ring

Nico Rosberg has topped the first practice session at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, 1.4s ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Drivers spent the session acquainting and reacquainting themselves with the Red Bull Ring, which has been absent from the F1 calendar for 11 years.

Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Felipe Massa are the only drivers in the field who have raced at the venue, which was previously named the A1-Ring prior 2009.

As well as a few teams trialling new aero parts on their cars, Mercedes and Ferrari tested skid blocks on the floor of their cars in order to create sparks and make the cars more spectacular. Rosberg and Raikkonen were the carriers of the skid blocks. Work is now being carried out by the teams to figure out where to position the blocks to create the best sparks.

Having set the fastest time in FP1, Rosberg ended his session with 20 minutes to go as the team wanted to change his KERS cooling pump that was giving him troubles earlier.

A mix of learning a new track and a very green surface saw plenty of cars run wide and explore track limits. Sebastian Vettel was lucky to avoid heavy damage as he got out of shape on the final corner and completed a full 720-spin.

The top 10 were almost a lock out of Mercedes powered engines, aside from the Ferrari of Alonso and Renault powered Toro Rosso piloted by Jean-Eric Vergne.

Red Bull has had a slow start to the weekend, with Daniel Ricciardo placing 13^th whilst his team-mate Vettel was two places behind in 15^th.

Marcus Ericsson suffered electrical problems after seven laps, and is in danger of missing FP2 if his team isn’t able to fix the problem in time.

Adrian Sutil also experienced problems in his Sauber. A broken hose in his turbo saw the unit malfunction and not work properly, sidelining him from the session after seven laps.

2014 Austrian Formula 1 Grand Prix – Free Practice 1 Results:

	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W05	1:11.295		19
2.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W05	1:11.435	+ 0.140	32
3.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F14T	1:11.606	+ 0.311	23
4.	Felipe Massa	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW36	1:11.756	+ 0.461	27
5.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-29	1:11.839	+ 0.544	33
6.	Sergio Pérez	Force India Mercedes Mercedes VJM07	1:12.009	+ 0.714	33
7.	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India Mercedes Mercedes VJM07	1:12.072	+ 0.777	20
8.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW36	1:12.114	+ 0.819	21
9.	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren Mercedes MP4-29	1:12.313	+ 1.018	36
10.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Renault STR9	1:12.364	+ 1.069	30
11.	Kimi Räikkönen	Scuderia Ferrari F14T	1:12.365	+ 1.070	21
12.	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso Renault STR9	1:12.372	+ 1.077	35
13.	Daniel Ricciardo	Infiniti Red Bull Racing Renault RB10	1:12.570	+ 1.275	28
14.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C33	1:12.984	+ 1.689	29
15.	Sebastian Vettel	Infiniti Red Bull Racing Renault RB10	1:12.988	+ 1.693	25
16.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Team Renault E22	1:13.168	+ 1.873	28
17.	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus F1 Team Renault E22	1:13.642	+ 2.347	27
18.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia F1 Team Ferrari MR03	1:13.738	+ 2.443	26
19.	Max Chilton	Marussia F1 Team Ferrari MR03	1:13.857	+ 2.562	28
20.	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham F1 Team Renault CT05	1:14.611	+ 3.316	24
21.	Adrian Sutil	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C33	1:14.691	+ 3.396	9
22.	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham F1 Team Renault CT05	1:17.501	+ 6.206	8