Nico Rosberg won the race from pole position, ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton, with Kimi Räikkönen completing the podium for Ferrari.

While Rosberg extended his winning streak to seven consecutive Grands Prix, Sebastian Vettel retired from the race on the first lap, after contact with Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat.

[9] Red Bull Racing used the first practice session to test the "aeroscreen", a form of cockpit protection developed in response to fatal accidents of the drivers such as Ayrton Senna, Jules Bianchi, Justin Wilson and Henry Surtees, who were struck on the head by flying debris.

The device was fitted to Daniel Ricciardo's car and he completed a single installation lap to assess it before it was removed for the remainder of the session.

[15] In the first session on Friday morning, Nico Rosberg was fastest for Mercedes with a time of 1:38.127, more than seven-tenths of a second ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Sergey Sirotkin drove for Renault, taking the place of Kevin Magnussen,[18] making his second appearance in a Formula One car, after driving for Sauber during free practice at the 2014 Russian Grand Prix.

Rosberg managed only third fastest as the Mercedes drivers were split by Sebastian Vettel, even though the latter suffered from electrical problems that lost him track time.

Rosberg in turn was unable to improve on his time set on the soft-compound tyre due to his super-soft run being compromised by yellow flags shown after a spin by Romain Grosjean.

Slowest of the session was Sauber's Marcus Ericsson, with the two Manor drivers Rio Haryanto and Pascal Wehrlein slotting in ahead of him.

All drivers used the super-soft tyre compound to set their fastest lap times, with the two Ferrari cars of Vettel and Räikkönen third and fourth ahead of the Williams pair of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas.

Vettel had spent most of the session testing his car with a heavier fuel load in preparation for the race that would see him start with a five-place grid penalty for a change of the gearbox.

Both McLarens had shown promising pace, but nevertheless dropped out of contention in 12th and 14th, while Daniil Kvyat was the last driver to secure a place in Q3, demoting Carlos Sainz Jr. to 11th.

Kvyat's Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo also progressed, albeit suffering a failure of his wing mirror, which hung off the side of his vehicle during his last timed lap.

[21] As Q3 started, it became apparent that Lewis Hamilton would be unable to take part, suffering from a hybrid system failure in the turbo charger, the same problem that had plagued him in China two weeks earlier.

Kvyat's early pit stop left him in 15th at that point, and he soon served a ten-second stop-and-go penalty for his contacts with Vettel, dropping him to last.

[26] While racing for position on lap 23, Sainz forced Jolyon Palmer off the track in turn two and was later handed a ten-second time penalty for the incident.

His teammate Ricciardo overtook Kevin Magnussen for eighth on lap 29, but lost the position again and was in turn passed by Romain Grosjean.

As Hamilton was told by his pit crew that he suffered from a water pressure problem, his gap to Rosberg started to increase again, staying at 13 seconds by lap 41.

Rosberg crossed the line to take his seventh consecutive victory,[27] a feat to that point only achieved by Alberto Ascari, Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel.

"[33] On 5 May, Red Bull announced that they had relegated Kvyat back to their junior squad, Toro Rosso, the team for which he made his début in 2014, for the remainder of the season, switching him with 18-year-old Max Verstappen.

Two points each were given to Carlos Sainz Jr., who was deemed to have forced Jolyon Palmer off the track and Esteban Gutiérrez, who collided with Nico Hülkenberg at the start.