SOCHI, Russian Federation Le Mans victor and Force India Formula One driver Nico Hulkenberg has ruled out missing next year’s European Grand Prix in Baku to defend his 24 Hours sportscar title.
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Come the conclusion it was Hulkenberg who led the way with a lap of 1:44.355s, a full second off the best FP1 time from Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg a year ago ahead of the debut Russian race.
On a cold morning with intermittent rain, the session offered few clues to performance as the diesel spillage left the Sochi Autodrom circuit in a treacherous and slippy condition.
Elsewhere in the Sochi paddock on Thursday, Fernando Alonso dismissed speculation he might take a sabbatical next year as he waits for McLaren-Honda to get up to speed.
After emergency washing of the track, the session began late, four-time world champion German Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari commenting “what a mess” as he drove through the drying patch for the first time.
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.
Race promoter Sergey Vorobyev said: “All the practice sessions are running according to schedule, so the incident is not critical. There will be an investigation and it is an internal matter now”.
Track marshals and officials attempted to clean up the diesel by hosing down the affected areas with water, but it seemed to do little to aid the situation. 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.
“From my point of view, there is not much to learn from today”, the Briton, who holds a 48-point lead over team-mate Nico Rosberg with five races remaining, said.
Hulkenberg was 0.052 sec faster than Rosberg while Vettel, who also spun in the testing track conditions, was third fastest.
This weekend, Formula One will take to Sochi for the Russian Grand Prix.
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Rain is forecast for the second session.
