Russian GP: Hulkenberg tops first free practice


October 9, 2015
Event Reports
Alexander S


  • Nico Hulkenberg

Nico Hulkenberg was the fastest during the shortened first Free practice before the FIA Formula 1 Russian Grand Prix at Sochi Autodrom.

Conditions were tricky as the track was wet, but the main problem was something else. The start of the session was delayed by 30 minutes as the track had to be cleared following the diesel spillage before the session had started.

diesel-sochi

That’s why the drivers had only one hour for testing during the first session and they had to be very cautious and patient due to pretty bad state of the track. Many of them complained that they have very little grip, some of them slid off track, most of them at Turn 8, but there were no major accidents.

Fernando Alonso and Marcus Ericsson were the only drivers who set a lap time in the first 30 minutes of the first free practice. The others looked like they were preparing for the second free practice and waiting to see if the conditions on the track could improve.

Kimi Raikkonen slid at Sochi

In the last 20 minutes , all cars were on the track, but conditions were still far from perfect and results definitely weren’t fully representative.

At the end of the session, Nico Hulkenberg set the fastest lap time (1:44.355) beating Nico Rosberg by only 0.052s, while Sebastian Vettel had third best result, 0.631s behind Force India driver.
Check the full results at SnapLap results page! 

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