The Briton and the Mexican were caught out right at the very end of the opening practice session by the yellow flags which had been prompted by Williams’ Pastor Maldonado, who had stopped with an engine failure at Turn 16. Hamilton finished the session as the fastest runner, whilst Perez secured 14th on the timesheets after their final efforts.
Renault’s Vitaly Petrov also goes into qualifying with a grid penalty after his collision with the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher during the Korean race. Petrov will drop five place on the Indian grid.
