Nico Rosberg was the defending race winner and entered the round with a forty-three-point lead over teammate Lewis Hamilton in the Drivers' Championship.

Max Verstappen won the race upon his début for his new team Red Bull, having swapped his Toro Rosso seat with Daniil Kvyat ahead of the event.

[8] Daniil Kvyat meanwhile expressed surprise at the decision, saying during Thursday's press conference that he was "shocked" by his demotion, stressing that Red Bull did not give him a "real explanation".

More significantly, the French manufacturer debuted a new version of their power unit for both their works team and Red Bull at the two-day test following the race.

[13] Both Sauber and Haas were allowed to use the updated version of Ferrari's 2016 power unit, which the works team had already used in Russia two weeks earlier.

The Mercedes drivers Rosberg and Hamilton followed, albeit on the medium compound, recording more timed laps than their rivals.

Upon his return to Toro Rosso, Daniil Kvyat was unable to match the pace of his teammate Carlos Sainz Jr., ending up half a second behind him.

[21] Esteban Ocon made his first free practice appearance of the season for Renault, replacing Jolyon Palmer,[22] but was unable to set a timed lap.

[23] Force India's Sergio Pérez managed only nine laps as he spent much of the session in the pit lane after smoke emerged from the rear of his car.

Fernando Alonso was seventh fastest for McLaren, but needed a replacement of his car's plank after running wide over artificial grass surrounding the track.

His teammate, Jenson Button, also experienced problems, having to stop at the end of the pitlane early in the session with an electrical issue.

Renault's problem from the first session continued: Jolyon Palmer, back in his car in place of Ocon, suffered a tyre failure on the start-finish straight, bringing out red flags in the process.

[24] Renault and tyre supplier Pirelli were left puzzled over the failure, as in this incident, no sign of a cut from debris was found.

[20] In the first part of qualifying (Q1), Nico Rosberg set a time of 1:23.002, the fastest of the weekend up to that point, two-tenths of a second ahead of teammate Hamilton.

Joining him on the sidelines for Q3 were Jenson Button in twelfth, with Romain Grosjean, Kevin Magnussen and Esteban Gutiérrez lining up behind Kvyat.

The two Red Bull cars of Ricciardo and Verstappen followed, with Räikkönen and Vettel for Ferrari in fifth and sixth respectively, both more than a second behind Hamilton.

This left Verstappen to lead Kimi Räikkönen, as it emerged that both would run on a different strategy, pitting only twice in contrast to the three stopping Vettel and Ricciardo.

[32] While Räikkönen closed on Verstappen at the front, Fernando Alonso's home race ended on lap 47, pulling over to the side of the track at turn three.

Räikkönen managed to get into the one-second window to activate the drag reduction system (DRS), as Vettel was eight seconds behind him with Ricciardo closing on him in fourth place.

Three laps later, Ricciardo made an attempt at overtaking into turn one, but braking too late left him running wide, allowing Vettel back through.

[32][34] At the podium interviews, conducted by singer Plácido Domingo,[35] Verstappen expressed delight about a "great race", crediting his team with giving him a good car.

During the post-race press conference, Räikkönen stressed that had anyone offered the team two podium positions after their poor performance in qualifying, they would have taken it "happily".

[36] Fourth placed Ricciardo expressed bitterness over Red Bull's decision to switch him to a three-stop strategy, which eventually lost him a podium position, saying: "I'm a bit devastated.

It emerged that Rosberg had chosen the wrong engine mode for the start, being down on power which led to Hamilton going for a passing manoeuvre.

However, Rosberg remained convinced that he had done nothing wrong, saying: "I made it very clear I wasn't going to leave any space on the inside and I was very surprised he went for the gap".

[44] Opinions about the incident varied: While Mercedes's executive chairman Niki Lauda blamed Hamilton for the crash,[45] former F1 driver Anthony Davidson said on Sky Sports F1 that Rosberg's move was "very aggressive".

[41] For his last lap collision with teammate Jolyon Palmer, Kevin Magnussen received a ten-second time penalty, dropping him one place to 15th.

[51] Upon his return to Toro Rosso, Daniil Kvyat recorded the first fastest lap of his career, and the first for the Italian team in their 190th Grand Prix.