| Re: The Malaysian GP
Practice 1: First blood to Massa
Felipe Massa got straight down to business at Sepang on Friday, topping the timesheet in the opening practice session for the Malaysian Grand Prix.
The Ferrari driver was the only man to dip beneath the 1m35s mark as he edged out nearest rival Fernando Alonso by a quarter of a second.
After playing second fiddle to Lewis Hamilton for much of the Melbourne weekend, the world champion put his rookie team-mate in his place at this early stage of the proceedings in Malaysia, outpacing him by 0.5s.
Kimi Raikkonen completed a Ferrari-McLaren sandwich in the top quartet, as the form at the front of the field followed the pattern established through winter testing and in Australia.
Massa signalled his intentions by vaulting to the top of the timing charts on his first flying lap and knocking team-mate Raikkonen off the top spot a third of the way through the 90-minute session with a lap of 1m35.265s.
On his next circuit he upped the ante to 1m34.972s, which would stand as the quickest time of the morning.
The only blemish on an otherwise perfect first foray for the Brazilian was a pit lane speeding penalty.
Of potentially greater concern to Ferrari will be the smoke that was seen emanating from the back of Raikkonen’s car early on in the session.
Reliability appears to be the only slight chink in the Maranello squad’s armoury at present, with Massa falling victim to gearbox problems during qualifying in Australia and Raikkonen having to protect his engine en route to victory.
Raikkonen’s car was fitted with a different engine to the one he used in Melbourne, since the three hours of practice on Friday are now exempt from the two-race engine rule.
Even so, Ferrari faces a difficult decision whether to change the power unit in the Finn’s F2007 overnight as a precautionary measure, which would carry a 10-place grid penalty.
The McLaren team-mates traded times early on in this morning’s session and both had off-course excursions as they explored the limits.
Alonso went off the road after getting out of shape at turn four, while Hamilton took to the grass in the pit lane entry on one occasion.
Behind the Ferraris and McLarens, Williams was ‘best of the rest’, with Nico Rosberg an excellent fifth fastest and test driver Kazuki Nakajima again impressing in P8.
The Japanese driver provided the only significant incident of the session when he spun off at the final hairpin and then could not select first gear due to a software problem.
The two FW29s were split by sixth-fastest Mark Webber, who again showed the potential of Adrian Newey’s Red Bull RB3, and the lead Toyota of Jarno Trulli.
Ralf Schumacher was ninth quickest in the sister TF107 ahead of BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica, the second Red Bull of David Coulthard and BMW test driver Sebastian Vettel.
Meanwhile two big hitters continued to struggle to extract pace from their new cars.
Renault could manage only the 14th and 15th best times, with Heikki Kovalainen marginally quicker than Giancarlo Fisichella.
The Finnish rookie reported over the radio that his car was understeering badly and could not be coaxed into the corners even with an aggressive approach to turn-in.
But Renault’s problems seemed mild compared to those of Honda, which was marooned near the bottom of the timing charts all morning.
Rubens Barrichello (19th) and Jenson Button (20th) found themselves outpaced by Takuma Sato’s Super Aguri, Adrian Sutil’s Spyker and both Toro Rossos.
Friday free practice session 1 times from Sepang
1. MASSA Ferrari 1m34.972s
2. ALONSO McLaren 1m35.220s
3. HAMILTON McLaren 1m35.712s
4. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m35.779s
5. ROSBERG Williams 1m36.308s
6. WEBBER Red Bull 1m36.522s
7. TRULLI Toyota 1m36.597s
8. NAKAJIMA Williams 1m36.885s
9. SCHUMACHER Toyota 1m37.052s
10. KUBICA BMW 1m37.121s
11. COULTHARD Red Bull 1m37.484s
12. VETTEL BMW 1m37.837s
13. LIUZZI Toro Rosso 1m37.882s
14. KOVALAINEN Renault 1m38.143s
15. FISICHELLA Renault 1m38.300s
16. SUTIL Spyker 1m38.720s
17. SATO Super Aguri 1m38.966s
18. SPEED Toro Rosso 1m39.130s
19. BARRICHELLO Honda 1m39.234s
20. BUTTON Honda 1m39.331s
21. DAVIDSON Super Aguri 1m39.357s
22. ALBERS Spyker 1m40.074s |