BARCELONA — Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton set the pace in Spanish Grand Prix practice Friday while Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg fell foul of the stewards with his first reprimand of the season. While Rosberg set the fastest lap of the day in the morning session, with a lap of one minute 26.828 seconds, Hamilton was comfortably quicker in the afternoon sunshine at the Circuit de Catalunya. The Briton's time of 1:26.852 compared to Rosberg's 1:27.616, although the German had gearchange problems, as the sport fired up for its first European weekend of the season.Rosberg was summoned to the stewards, including former world champion Alan Jones, after first practice for a pitlane infringement. Force India's Mexican Sergio Perez was then fined 1,000 euros ($1,123.80) for speeding in the pit lane during the second practice. Hamilton, last year's winner in Spain, has won three of four races this season and started all on pole. He leads Rosberg by 27 points. Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel was third and second fastest in the sessions, but still some way off the Mercedes pace, with team mate Kimi Raikkonen fourth in both. Toro Rosso's rookie pairing of Carlos Sainz, making his home debut, and Max Verstappen were in the top 10 in both sessions but Red Bull had a difficult day. Australian Daniel Ricciardo was sidelined for much of the two sessions while the team worked on his car's engine. Ricciardo, who is already on his fourth engine for the season out of an allocation of four, ended up ninth and 13th. Frenchman Romain Grosjean brought out red flags when the engine cover of his Lotus blew off and shattered into pieces on the pit straight. Susie Wolff made the third practice appearance of her career with Williams, 40 years on from the only occasion on which a woman driver has finished in the points, and ended up with a faster time than two world champions. The Scot, who will not race Sunday, was 14th fastest and ahead of McLaren's Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button — 15th and 16th respectively. Valtteri Bottas then took the car back for the afternoon and was eighth fastest. Double champion Alonso was returning to the home circuit where he crashed heavily in pre-season testing, an accident that forced him to miss the Australian season-opener. He was an encouraging 11th in the afternoon. F1 engine allocation set to stay unchanged Red Bull's hopes of staving off engine penalties this season look doomed, with teams set to reject a proposal to increase the allocation per driver from four to five when Formula One's strategy group meets next week. While champion Mercedes is willing to agree, even if it erodes its advantage, the independent teams that pay the German manufacturer for engines appear opposed. Force India deputy principal Bob Fernley said his team would resist anything that increased costs, while sources at Williams indicated it would make no sense for it to help rivals close the performance gap. “I know it's on the agenda but I have no idea what the wording is. And more importantly I don't know what the cost implications are, because that will be the key to it,” Fernley said at the Spanish Grand Prix Friday. He expected, however, that a fifth engine would cost an extra $1.5 million. “That's why Williams wouldn't want it, why Lotus wouldn't want it and why we wouldn't want it,” added the Briton, whose team have suffered cash-flow problems and have had to delay the introduction of upgrades. Formula One allowed drivers five engines last year, the first of the new V6 turbo hybrid era, but the allocation was cut for 2015 with grid penalties for anyone exceeding the limit. Force India and Williams are both on the key six team Strategy Group which also includes Mercedes, Renault-powered Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren-Honda. — Agencies
