2014 F1 Chinese Grand Prix: Alonso sets pace ahead of Rosberg in FP1

Fernando Alonso set the fastest time of 1m 39.783s the first practice session at the Chinese Grand Prix, beating Nico Rosberg by almost 0.4s. With the new Ferrari team principal, Marco Mattiacci, taking over from Stefano Domenicali, watching over, Alonso was quickest for the majority of the session.

Rosberg improved his times in the final ten minutes while Red Bull Daniel Ricciardo was third for Red Bull, 0.989s slower than Alonso and 0.2 ahead of Jenson Button's McLaren.

Force India was right up there too with Nico Hulkenberg going fifth fastest ahead of McLaren's Kevin Magnussen. If you're wondering where Lewis Hamilton is in the scheme of things, well, he suffered from a reliability issue for Mercedes as he completed just nine laps.

Kimi Raikkonen failed to run following his installation lap. He was out of his car and never got out on the track for the rest of the session.

FP2 begins soon and we'll get you all the updates from that front.