Lewis Hamilton sent an early warning to his rivals after setting an impressive pace on the Soft compound tyre in the opening practice session at the Chinese GP.

The Mercedes driver posted a 1m33.999s to lead the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen by three-tenths of a second but the Finn's best would come on the Ultrasoft rubber, as Pirelli look to mix up strategies by having a two-compound step.

Valtteri Bottas was third also on the yellow-striped tyre in the second Silver Arrow ahead of the two Red Bulls on the Ultras with Max Verstappen recovering from a spin into the gravel at the final corner to finish a tenth behind his teammate Daniel Ricciardo.

Sebastian Vettel was sixth but didn't set a representative lap time on the softest compound available.

The big story of the session was the conditions, with cold and blustery weather making life difficult for the drivers, particularly with tailwinds at key corners such as Turn 1, 6, 11 and 16 with many drivers running wide of spinning.

Odd spots of rain also made predicting the level of grip tricky and resulting in the unusual offs such as that for Verstappen at the final corner.

In the midfield, it was the usual suspects leading with the two Haas' and two Renault's completing the top 10.

Pierre Gasly and Toro Rosso remain in the mix in P11 with McLaren and Force India also in the tightly bunched pack which saw just 1.6 seconds cover P7 to P18 with a mix of tyres being used as well.

The only driver slightly out of position was Stoffel Vandoorne in P18 for McLaren after the Belgian spun into the gravel exiting Turn 10 before recovering back to the pits.

Mostly, though, the tricky conditions made any firm evaluations tough to make and, should it remain dry, a clearer picture should emerge in the afternoon.