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| Jenson Button - Fastest on Day One in Australia |
Australia, lovely and sunny right? Wrong. After a night of rain the track was wet and the cars had to start practice one on intermediate tyres. Not only that, the drivers had to contend with an oil slick that was left by the historic racing cars earlier in the day. It was evident early on that the teams would use most of this first session as an extension of the pre-season testing process.
The first car to take to the track was Toro Rosso rookie Jean-Eric Vergne followed closely by his team mate Daniel Ricciardo. Both cars ventured out on intermediate tyres. Australian Ricciardo was the first driver to complete a flying lap in 2012, coming in with a 1:47:448.
Despite the regulation changes and the different look to the cars this season, they sound and look like F1 cars immediately. Despite many criticisms of the styling, the cars didn't take long to get used to.
The big news yesterday was whether HRT would pass the race stewards scrutiny in time. They did, but only just in time. Despite this they hadn't quite put Pedro De La Rosa's car together and were concerned that they had a lack of parts, so decided not to risk running in the wet.
Nico Rosberg and Nico Hulkenburg were the next to venture out, this time on full wet tyres. Nico Rosberg was the first driver in 2012 to have an unwelcome adventure off the track, loosing his rear end on the very wet grass.
Mike Gascoigne of Caterham F1 commented that they would only send their cars out at the end of the session and not use some of the new parts. He didn't want to put a car into the wall, especially as they would learn very little from this session.
During this first practice session, McLaren were about the only team not running any new parts at all, probably again down to the wet track and as Mike Gascoigne had previously mentioned, there's probably not a lot to learn.
The first of the top runners to venture out for a timed lap was Fernando Alonso, he managed to put in a 1:37:941. Almost ten seconds faster than the first time of the day set by Ricciardo.
HRT's day went from bad to worse as Narain Karthikeyan was sent out only to find himself breaking down due to a loss of oil pressure.
One thing that stood out for me on this first day of practice was that with the new styling, the Mercedes really did look like a silver arrow. Not only that, the car looked fast, especially when using the DRS system. This, it has been rumoured is down to an F-Duct style system on the rear wing, giving them an ultra efficient DRS. This could be something that if successful will be copied up and down the paddock. I guess we won't know for sure until Sunday.
Kimi Raikkonen would have liked an easier time of his first session back, he found that his power steering had an issue and therefore he had to hand over to the Lotus mechanics. With 48 minutes of the session remaining, it looked to most like we wouldn't see him back out until practice two.
The track started to dry out and with 35 minutes of the first session remaining we had Kamui Kobayashi the first car out on track using dry weather tyres. The amount of weaving he was doing showed that it was still a bit difficult to get decent heat into the tyres. His first hot lap on slicks came in at 1:31:751, a full 5.1 seconds ahead of the current leader. Given that Kobayashi made an error on this particular lap, it was obvious to all the teams that the time had come to go out with the dry weather tyres.
We got our first look at the Red Bull on dry racing tyres in 2012, the first timed lap coming in 3.82 seconds down on Sauber's time, but the lap did look on the cautious side.
It has to be noted that the Williams didn't look too bad, it looks like they have made at least some progress compared to last season. For me though, the Mercedes did look very good.
With 14 minutes to go in the session, Felipe Massa managed to beach his car in the gravel at turn 9 after going onto the wet grass. He did try to blame the car over the radio, which was broadcast to the world, followed closely by a replay of him going of line and onto the grass. The first big whoops of the season.
We hadn't seen much from the two McLaren's until the final 10 minutes when Button put in a beautiful lap six tenths of a second ahead of the field.
Despite the thoughts of some commentators, Kimi Raikkonen did manage to get out with 6 minutes left of the session, and managed to finish the session in 9th.
Here is the full run down of the 1st session timings:
- Button - McLaren - 1:27:540
- Hamilton - McLaren
- Schumacher - Mercedes
- Alonso - Ferrari
- Webber - Red Bull
- Rosberg - Mercedes
- Ricciardo - Toro Rosso
- Maldonado - Williams
- Raikkonen - Lotus
- Kobayashi - Sauber
- Vettel - Red Bull
- Hulkenberg - Force India
- Di Resta - Force India
- Senna - Williams
- Sauber
- Grosjean - Lotus
- Kovalainen - Caterham
- Massa - Ferrari
- Vergne - Toro Rosso
- Petrov - Caterham
- Glock - Marussia
- Pic - Marussia - + 12.696 seconds behind 1st
- Karthikeyan - HRT (no time set)
- De La Rosa - HRT (no time set)
In between session one and session two there was another downpour and therefore we only saw Sauber, Williams and Toro Rosso out for the first half hour of the session. All still perhaps learning rather than looking at anything in particular. They all ventured out on full wets and they were needed.
With around an hour to go McLaren and Ferrari were the first of the so called 'big boys' to venture out on the track. With around 50 minutes of the session to go a dry line started to appear.
To be perfectly honest with you, the first half of this session was rather devoid of action.
I spent a bit of time thinking about what I had seen so far during the first two sessions, due to this lack of action. I think that Michael Schumacher looked far more composed and at home in his car, this is the first time I have seen this since his return. The Mercedes car looked good and in his hands could we finally see him back on the podium. Now I was never someone who liked Michael in the first part of his career. Yes, he may have been world champion so many times we lost count, but his driving style just didn't sit right with me. Then I started to look back at Jenson Button in first practice and can see he still looked like the type of driver that I would consider a title challenger and am happy with my prediction of a 2nd championship for the McLaren driver.
Back to the action on the track now. With 30 minutes remaining a nice dry line started to appear and we finally got some good running. The teams started to run in more of a race set up mode, this was down to a little known new rule, with 30 minutes to go in practice the DRS is limited to race mode. This means they can only activate it in the DRS zones and when within a second of the car in front.
We finally witnessed some action from HRT, Narain Karthikeyan was out on track and set a hot lap, he ventured out on slicks and was still a full seven seconds behind the session leader, who happened to be on wet tyres. Not a good sign for the 107% rule. In all honesty, without a major showing tomorrow they will not be on the grid for Sunday's race.
As all teams set about putting dry tyres on the times tumbled. Top slot in the timing board moved between Force India, Caterham, Ferrari and Red Bull.
With five minutes to go, Nico Hulkenberg went fastest, a shock? Perhaps not, remember his last F1 outing in Brasil two years ago, when he put his Williams on poll?
One of the surprises to most in this second session was the speed of the Caterham cars as they finished with Kovalainen finishing the session in 8th and Petrov in 13th. Caterham must be happy with that performance from both drivers.
As the flag fell we saw one of the most action packed moments of the day when on the home straight Kobayashi spun 360 degrees as the flag fell. In all honesty a very scary moment I am sure for the driver, but he managed to keep the car on the road.
We didn't learn too much from this session, but we have learnt one important factor, the spread of times is so close amongst the top and the midfield that we may see a surprise or two Saturday and Sunday.
Here is the full run down of the 2nd session timings:
- Schumacher – Mercedes – 1:29:183
- Hulkenberg – Force India
- Perez – Sauber
- Alonso – Ferrari
- Kobayashi – Sauber
- Di Resta – Force India
- Massa – Ferrari
- Kovalainen – Caterham
- Rosberg – Mercedes
- Vettel – Red Bull
- Webber – Red Bull
- Glock – Marussia
- Petrov – Caterham
- Grosjean – Lotus
- Button – McLaren
- Hamilton – McLaren
- Maldonado – Williams
- Raikkonen – Lotus
- Senna – Williams
- Vergne – Toro Rosso
- Ricciardo – Toro Rosso
- Pic – Marussia
- Karthikeyan – HRT - + 13.4 seconds off pole
- De La Rosa – HRT (no time set)
So we are away now, tomorrow we will have a third practice and qualifying. Overall, Jenson Button wins the day with his practice one time. Mercedes have looked good. The times have closed up, especially in session two when just 3.4 seconds separated a Mercedes and a Marussia. Things look worrying for HRT, and finally Red Bull are either not going to run away with it or they are feeding us with bull!!
Join us again tomorrow for a qualifying report in which we are likely to get to see some sunshine.
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