Trouble for Mercedes and Hamilton at Malaysian FP

SEPANG, Malaysia (AP) — Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton suffered an engine failure in Friday's opening practice session for the Malaysian Grand Prix while his teammate Nico Rosberg set the fastest time at Sepang International Circuit.

Hamilton pulled off the track around 30 minutes into the 90-minute session, and radioed back to the pit-wall that "there was a click in the rear, the gears still worked but I stopped the car like you told me to, but I would have made it back."

His engineer replied "we are a bit worried about this because it's a race engine" and took a cautious approach because there was also a telemetry failure on the car so they did not know what the problem was.

Hamilton did not return for the rest of the session as the crew worked intensively on his car's engine and gearbox.

Rosberg had the fastest time of 1 minute, 40.124 seconds, a third of a second quicker than Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, who led his teammate Sebastian Vettel in third.

Fernando Alonso, who skipped the opening race due to a preseason concussion, made his first outing for his new team McLaren, but was down in 14th place on the timesheets and his teammate Jenson Button was 17th as the team struggles with the new Honda engine.

The Manor team also had its first appearance of the season, having failed to turn a wheel in Melbourne as it prepared its cars and computer systems after going into financial administration in the offseason. Will Stevens and Roberto Mehri predictably set the slowest lap times, but were quick enough to suggest the team is capable of getting within seven percent of the pole position time in Saturday qualifying — the threshold for being eligible for the race.

Lotus driver Romain Grosjean was fourth fastest, and the Toro Rosso rookies Carlos Sainz Jr. and Max Verstappen were fifth and seventh, separated by Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo. Williams driver Valtteri Bottas was eighth, Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat ninth and Sauber's Marcus Ericsson tenth.

Hamilton's engine failure, and a foregone hour of testing, put him at a disadvantage to Rosberg even if the team does cure his car's issues before the afternoon's second practice session.