Daniel Ricciardo’s home Grand Prix weekend has got off to a largely anonymous start, with the Red Bull Racing driver finishing 10th in opening practice for the Australian Formula One Grand Prix on Friday afternoon in Melbourne.
Ricciardo completed just nine laps in the opening 90-minute session of the year, a half-spin at Turn 15 his only notable moment of a low-key session that was dominated, as expected, by Mercedes duo Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.
Off the back of a season that saw it win 16 of 19 Grands Prix and both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles, Mercedes picked up at Albert Park where it left off, with Rosberg topping the session with lap of 1min 29.557 seconds, set in the opening minutes.
The gulf between Mercedes and the rest was evident, Hamilton finishing 0.029secs adrift of Rosberg, while third-placed Valtteri Bottas (Williams) was a further 1.191 seconds behind.
Ricciardo’s best lap, a 1:31.570, was 2.013 seconds off top spot.
Ricciardo didn’t turn a single lap in the opening half an hour of the session, relinquishing the chance to use the extra set of tyres allocated to each driver in the opening 30 minutes of Friday practice, and finally emerged after 37 minutes to rapturous applause from the Albert Park crowd.
Instructed by race engineer Simon Rennie to work his tyres and brakes on his warm-up lap to cope with a circuit yet to rubber in, the 25-year-old Australian’s first timed lap of 1:33.179, good for 12th on the timesheets.
Ricciardo emerged for his first serious running with 33 minutes remaining, but spun at the penultimate corner on his first lap after dropping his right-rear wheel on the grass on the outside of the turn, commenting that the car’s “driveability is really tricky” before continuing.
Both Ricciardo and new-for-2015 teammate Daniil Kvyat were forced to use an older-specification nose on the RB11 in opening practice that was used in pre-season testing at Jerez and Barcelona in Spain, with a new iteration of the nose flown especially to Melbourne failing to pass a mandatory FIA crash test on Thursday.
The rate of progress in Formula One since the all-new V6 turbo hybrid engines made their debut at Albert Park was stark, Rosberg’s best time more than two seconds faster than the quickest overall lap of the corresponding session last year, a 1:31.840 set by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
Manor-Marussia drivers Roberto Merhi and Will Stevens didn’t take to the circuit after the cash-strapped team was only confirmed for the season-opening race last week, while Sauber did no running with Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr as the team’s legal battle with Dutch driver Giedo van der Garde continues.
Van der Garde, the team’s test driver last year, instigated legal action against Sauber claiming he had been guaranteed a drive for 2015 before being jettisoned for Ericsson and Nasr, with his case being heard in the Victorian Supreme Court this week.
A second 90-minute practice session will take place later on Friday afternoon.
