First Russian GP practice hit by diesel spillage

The track speeded up throughout the session, which started half an hour late for the most freaky of reasons.

Alonso’s team-mate Jenson Button then set a slightly more representative time soon after of 1:50.920s before spots of rain threatened to add to mix of a disrupted session.

Carlos Sainz was sixth for Toro Rosso, followed by Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Williams’ Valtteri Bottas.

It allowed McLaren to top the times for a while, but no truly competitive laps could be posted.

Hulkenberg led a practice session for the first time this season after banging in a quick lap right at the finish, 0.052 quicker than Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg, for a best time of one minute 44.355 seconds.

Earlier, Nico Hulkenberg headed the timesheets after the slippery surface, caused by the diesel spillage, began to dry out. Hamilton’s first run left him seventh on 1m 47.800s, though he might have improved on that had he not spun at the penultimate corner on his final run.

The Briton, who leads team mate Rosberg by 48 points with five races remaining, had been second fastest with two minutes to go as the track got quicker.

Hamilton said: “Today we had to just sit and wait”.

“It will be a busy session, but at the same time it could generate an opportunity for us”.

“Yesterday, the team did all of the analysis they could so, so we feel pretty confident about the weekend, but we will find out tomorrow”.

Red-faced organisers of the race in Russian Federation vowed to launch a probe into the truck spillage on Friday morning. The area around the spillage was even more hazardous than the rest of the track.

Indeed Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel appeared to sum up the farcical mood.

Race promoter Sergey Vorobyev said: “All the practice sessions are running according to schedule, so the incident is not critical”.

A cleaning truck dropped a large amount of diesel overnight to cause the delay. “There will be an investigation and it is an internal matter now”.

Asked if there will be a full quota of teams on the grid in 2016, Ecclestone replied: “Yeah”.

Hulkenberg told reporters at the Russian Grand Prix on Thursday that he was committed to Formula One and that took precedence.