Alonso fastest man on track during first free practice session

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As predicted by the weather forecast rain fell before the opening session started and the first driver to venture out on a very damp track was Sebastian Vettel in his BMW-Sauber. First of the front-runners to appear was reigning world champion Fernando Alonso who quickly banged in a 1m 42.878s to go first. Nick Heidfeld then showed that the BMW-Sauber’s testing pace was no fluke setting the fastest lap so far in 1m 38.165s with under 25 minutes to go.

All the action came in the closing five minutes as the drivers shod dry rubber. Homeboy, Mark Webber, was the first to put down a marker in 1m 32.194s at 11:22. The battle for fastest time developed into a Ferrari-McLaren contest. Massa went quickest in 1m 30.707s with 1 minute to go but Alonso put in a scorcher just before the flag fell in 1m 29.214s. Felipe was unable to riposte as he was held up by Liuzzi’s Toro Rosso on his last flying lap, which caused a bit of fist shaking on the Brazilian’s part.

For the ING Renault F1 Team Heikki Kovalainen finished in a very encouraging 8th place on his first time out on the Albert Park circuit in difficult conditions while Fisichella saw the flag in twelfth spot. The drivers covered 20 and 14 laps respectively.

The 2 Red Bulls of Coulthard and Webber also powered by the V8 Renault RS27 engine ended the session in 7th and 9th places, 2.3s and 2.4s off Alonso’s time.

It looks like the 2nd session will be run in dry conditions so times should fall even further.

Results

       
1F. AlonsoMcLaren1:29.21423
2F. MassaFerrari1:30.7077
3S. VettelBMW1:30.85722
4L. HamiltonMcLaren1:30.87814
5J. ButtonHonda1:31.16215
6K. NakajimaWilliams1:31.40121
7D. CoulthardRed Bull1:31.5289
8H. KovalainenRenault1:31.57120
9M. WebberRed Bull1:31.66116
10R. BarrichelloHonda1:31.73712
11T. SatoSuper Aguri1:31.7827
12G. FisichellaRenault1:32.01114
13A. WurzWilliams1:32.19418
14A. SutilSpyker F11:34.04326
15V. LiuzziScuderia Toro Rosso1:34.6278
16C. AlbersSpyker F11:35.05510
17N. HeidfeldBMW1:37.24912
18A. DavidsonSuper Aguri1:39.2216
19K. RäikkönenFerrari1:39.2427
20R. SchumacherToyota1:39.5509
21S. SpeedScuderia Toro Rosso1:41.7639
22J. TrulliToyota1:44.13011