They did at least achieve that in the first session, however, with world champion Lewis Hamilton leaving it until the last five minutes to complete a lap and ending up seventh on the timesheets.
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The reasoning for Alonso being the only driver on track was due to, rather ironically, a cleaning van leaking what is believed to be hydraulic fluid (oil) on circuit at 0600 this morning, which incidentally pushed back the start time of FP1 by half an hour and as a direct result of that cut the sessions time from 90 minutes to just 60 minutes. On his exploratory lap Vettel summarised the situation perfectly over the radio: “What a mess!”
The track conditions were declared officially as “wet” and this meant drivers ran on intermediate and full-wet tyres to cope with the slippery surface left by the diesel and its aftermath.
Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson was the first to try slicks, with his soft tyres, but it took a while for anyone to post a lap time.
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.
Hulkenberg set a time of 1 minute, 44.355 seconds around the Sochi track, 0.052 seconds faster than Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg, with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel third.
Rain is forecast for Friday afternoon, although with the weekend likely to be dry from Saturday onwards, Friday is likely to see very little running. Felipe Massa ended the session fastest.
Drivers bemoaned the slippery conditions, with several getting caught out by the large amounts of standing water on the track.
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Perez made it a good morning for the Silverstone team with fourth on 1m 45.146s as a late run put Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull fifth on 1m 45.233s ahead of Sainz on 1m 45.488s.
