Hulkenberg tops in Russian GP first practice

He was also aware that he needs to beat his team-mate this weekend to have any chance of closing him down in the championship, where Hamilton leads Rosberg by 48 points.

A diesel spillage from a cleaning truck forced organisers to shorten the first practice session, with Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg eventually ending up fastest.

“There was a diesel spill and it took us a few time to clean it – which caused the delay”. In order to maintain the day’s schedule the 30 lost minutes were deducted from the session’s duration.

The drivers had to go out onto a dry track on intermediate and wet tyres because the area around turn eight was so treacherous.

Gaining in confidence Alonso swiftly lowered that mark by seven seconds over the next two laps before Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson embarked on a steady run of laps to move within four tenths of a second of the Spaniard.

With 20 minutes remaining, only three drivers had bothered to set a lap time. He soon trimmed that to 1m 53.854s, however, but it was clear that the track was still so slippery that this would not be a fast session due to the unusual circumstances.

Vettel got up there too, in second on 1m 47.551s, before Bottas went top again on 1m 47.076s and was immediately displaced by Nico Hulkenberg on 1m 45.987s.

It was Rosberg who had to settle for second best, finishing just 0.052s adrift, with Sebastian Vettel third quickest in his Ferrari, 0.631s off the pace.

Hamilton left it until the last five minutes to set a timed lap and was seventh on the timesheets.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo was fifth, followed by Carlos Sainz for Toro Rosso. None of the drivers completed more than 16 laps and with rain looming ahead of the afternoon session, teams may have to muddle through to final practice with limited data on the slick tyres.