Alonso tops wet first practice at Spa

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F1 Grand Prix, GP Belgium, Circuit de Spa-Francorchampsbe

Fernando Alonso emerged on top of the timesheet in the first practice session at Spa-Francorchamps. The session was dominated by the weather, with a morning shower and light drizzle during the session making it tricky for the drivers to nail a strong lap.

Following about half an hour of dry weather, light drizzle returned to the track, but not enough to make the track any wetter than it was before.

When that rain finally cleared, Mark Webber was the first to change to slick tyres, opting for the hard compound. The dry part of the circuit between turns 8 and 16 play into his hands, and by lap 3 he's moved up to 7th, ahead of 5 intermediate runners.

At this halfway point, Raikkonen completed 8 laps, most of any driver thus far as Lotus were busy trying to verify some changes to its DRD.

Webber's improvements were soon noticed and triggered Vettel to also go out on the slicks, as well as the McLaren drivers. A bit later, with 35 minutes left on the clock, Perez is the first to top the times on slicks, confirming that the track is drying.

A few minutes later every single driver is out on track to benefit from the temporarily improved track conditions. As times tumbled quickly, Alonso eventually emerged on top, ahead of Di Resta. The best times however are the result of drivers setting a laptime at the right time, not necessarily of outright pace.

Sebastian Vettel for instance was quick on several occassions but made several mistakes in the final turn, ruining his laps. Kimi Raikkonen on the other hand did only complete a single lap on dry weather tyres before bowing out of it.

The weather is likely to improve ahead of FP2 with the track possibly dry for the afternoon session.

Results

Pos.No.DriverTeamTimeGapLaps
13Fernando AlonsoFerrari1:55.198-11
214Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1:55.2240.02610
315Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1:55.3730.17511
46Sergio PerezMcLaren-Mercedes1:55.5180.32014
59Nico RosbergMercedes1:55.6140.41610
61Sebastian VettelRed Bull Racing-Renault1:55.6360.43814
712Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1:55.9540.75618
811Nico HulkenbergSauber-Ferrari1:56.1100.91211
919Daniel RicciardoStr-Ferrari1:56.7701.57214
1017Valtteri BottasWilliams-Renault1:56.8581.66018
114Felipe MassaFerrari1:56.8631.66510
1216Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault1:57.0811.88314
1318Jean-Eric VergneStr-Ferrari1:57.0841.88617
145Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1:57.2812.08314
1510Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:57.3582.16010
1620Heikki KovalainenCaterham-Renault1:57.8212.62316
1721Giedo van der GardeCaterham-Renault1:57.8872.68916
1823Max ChiltonMarussia-Cosworth1:58.6003.40214
192Mark WebberRed Bull Racing-Renault1:58.9293.73112
2022Jules BianchiMarussia-Cosworth1:59.2094.01112
217Kimi RäikkönenLotus-Renault1:59.4414.24311
228Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault2:03.1767.97815