Rosberg fastest, Vettel crashes in FP1

But the big news of the first day of action was Sebastian Vettel's crash, the Red Bull driver starting his weekend on the back foot after a costly driving mistake.

The session had to be red-flagged with around 33 minutes to go when Vettel crashed into the "Wall of Champions" after his car jumped over the kerb at the final corner.

The right side of the Red Bull car was heavily damaged and the world champion, who had managed just eight laps before that, was unable to return to action.

Rosberg, meanwhile, enjoyed a trouble-free day to finish ahead of Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and his own Mercedes team-mate Michael Schumacher.

Felipe Massa was fourth fastest, with Jenson Button completing the top five ahead of McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

With the teams testing new parts, and with the track very dirty at the start of the session, it took several minutes before a time was set, with Toro Rosso's reserve Daniel Ricciardo becoming the first driver to complete a full lap over 20 minutes after the start.

Alonso quickly removed the Australian from the top spot, the Ferrari driver going four seconds quicker despite a scare at the exit of the hairpin. His time of 1m22.1s was bettered on the next lap, the Spaniard lapping in the 1m19s before heading back to the pits.

Schumacher took to the top with less than an hour left, the Mercedes driver going over a second faster than Alonso, with Hamilton and Jaime Alguersuari also setting fast times to relegate Alonso down to fourth.

Hamilton was next to move to the top with a time of 1m18.395s, a benchmark that lasted until Massa moved into the 1m17s with some 45 minutes of the session left.

Once the session was restarted following Vettel's accident, it was Alonso who returned to the top of the times with a lap of 1m17.102s, relegating his team-mate to second. The Spaniard went even quicker moments later, by a full second, to become the first man to lap in the 1m16s.

With 13 minutes to go, Rosberg jumped to first place, outpacing Alonso by over a tenth of a second on his 28th lap of the day. The Mercedes driver stayed on track for several minutes and posted a 1m15.591s with seven minutes remaining.

Renault's Vitaly Petrov was one a few drivers with problems, the Russian not managing to set a time until there were less than 10 minutes of the session left.

Pos  Driver                Team                    Time               Laps
 1.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes                1m15.591s            32
 2.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                 1m16.139s  + 0.548   27
 3.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes                1m16.549s  + 0.958   30
 4.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                 1m16.658s  + 1.067   26
 5.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes        1m16.676s  + 1.085   20
 6.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes        1m16.842s  + 1.251   19
 7.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth       1m16.990s  + 1.399   28
 8.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes    1m17.294s  + 1.703   26
 9.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault                 1m17.445s  + 1.854   28
10.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes    1m17.549s  + 1.958   20
11.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari          1m17.662s  + 2.071   27
12.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault        1m17.820s  + 2.229   30
13.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m18.458s  + 2.867   31
14.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault                 1m18.506s  + 2.915   15
15.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m18.648s  + 3.057   35
16.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault        1m18.852s  + 3.261    8
17.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth       1m18.932s  + 3.341   20
18.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault           1m19.274s  + 3.683   29
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault           1m19.422s  + 3.831   30
20.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari          1m19.577s  + 3.986   26
21.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth         1m19.838s  + 4.247   31
22.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth            1m19.960s  + 4.369   23
23.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth         1m20.520s  + 4.929   21
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth            1m20.839s  + 5.248   27

All Timing Unofficial