Engine changes on the Red Bull to trigger demotion to the back row
Thursday 6 December 2018 15:13, UK
Daniel Ricciardo set the pace from Lewis Hamilton in Practice One for the German GP but the Red Bull driver is set to start Sunday's race from the back of the grid.
Ricciardo was quickest with a lap of 1:13.525 at Hockenheim, 0.04 seconds ahead of Hamilton's Mercedes.
World championship leader Sebastian Vettel, running a new exhaust configuration on his Ferrari, was fourth quickest.
Mercedes also trialled new parts on their front-wing, underlining the relentless nature of this year's development battle between F1's biggest beasts.
But while Ricciardo, Hamilton and the third-placed Red Bull of Max Verstappen set their best times on ultrasoft tyres, Vettel's best effort was made on softs - two 'steps' below.
Red Bull could yet emerge as challengers this weekend but Ricciardo is poised to be demoted to the back of the field for the race after Bull introduced a suite of new engine parts for his car.
The threat of a penalty has been hanging over Ricciardo for several weeks since his victory at Monaco was achieved despite a mid-race power unit failure.
By taking the hit at Hockenheim, the team will hope for a clear run at next week's Hungarian GP, a race which should suit their car.
"We've been lucky to get through the last two events without taking penalties but this is as far as we can get so he's staring down the barrel of a 30-place grid penalty here," said team boss Christian Horner.
"We'll take as much as we can and hopefully that will see him for a while.
Full story: Ricciardo to start last in Hockenheim
Mercedes have started the weekend at their home race by announcing an unchanged driver line-up of Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas for 2019 - although the Finn has only been retained for a single season so far.
And with driver stability achieved off-track, the two Silver Arrows immediately impressed on track as first Hamilton and then Bottas led the way before Ricciardo's late burst.
Renault, striving to hang on to fourth in the Constructors' Championship, have also introduced a new front-wing configuration following a difficult series of races - although it was only tested by Nico Hulkenberg on Friday morning while Carlos Sainz continued with the older design.
But Renault made little impact in the timesheets with Haas duo Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen 'the best of the rest' in seventh and eighth.
Charles Leclerc, an increasingly-regular visitor to the top 10, was ninth fastest for Sauber ahead of Nico Hulkenberg.
Stoffel Vandoorne was slowest of all for McLaren - a reflection not on their car's outright speed but the team's struggles to evaluate new parts in their wind tunnel with Friday's morning session amounting to an extended test session as a result.
Fernando Alonso was 12th in the other McLaren.
