WORK ON BRAKES AND SET-UP

Suzuka - After the break in Singapore, Nico Hulkenberg was back in action at the 1st Free Practice of the Japanese GP in Suzuka. The 24-year-old drove 21 laps and gained a strong 12th place.

"It was a pretty good session for me," the Hulk said. "The main work was testing the material on the brakes and collecting data for the set-up."

In the end he drove a best time of 1:36.700 minutes. The training furthermore provided useful information about the tyres. "The day showed, that the tyres are most likely going to be heavily strained during the race,“ the Hulk explained.

Jenson Button drove the session’s best time (McLaren/1:33.634) ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton (+0.091) and Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull / +0.456).