FIA Super Licence
After replacing Jaime Alguersuari during the first Friday practice session in South Korea and Sébastien Buemi during the same session in Abu Dhabi, Formula Renault 3.5 runner-up Jean-Éric Vergne once again drove for Toro Rosso on Friday morning, after a statement announced he would take the place of "whichever of the Toro Rosso drivers has the least points"; Vergne ultimately replaced Buemi. Having completed the sufficient amount of mileage in order to acquire an FIA Super Licence at the Young Driver Test in Abu Dhabi, Jan Charouz took part in first practice for HRT, replacing Vitantonio Liuzzi. Romain Grosjean drove in the place of Vitaly Petrov at Renault, while Luiz Razia replaced Jarno Trulli at Lotus and Nico Hülkenberg drove Adrian Sutil's Force India. With Liuzzi and Trulli on the sidelines, the first practice session became the first time since the 2005 United States Grand Prix that an Italian driver had not taken part in a timed session.