Bourdais makes GP debut

After months of preparations and pre-season testing, the 2008 Formula One season finally kicked-off today at Albert Park during the Friday free practice sessions. For Sebastien Bourdais, it was his Grand Prix debut

Sebastian Vettel (STR2B-04): "The track was very green this morning, but it improved a lot and it will continue to change and get better right through to the Sunday. It's a case of so far so good as far as the car is concerned. In the first session I was relearning the track having driven just two sessions here last year. There are two or three areas where we can improve tomorrow and then we will see where we are. The tyres usually suffer a lot on a green track, but actually the high temperatures probably helped them today. But once the track is in good shape, it might begin to hurt the tyres."

First Practice Session
Best lap 1.28.957, pos. 9th, 22 laps
Second Practice Session
Best lap 1.29.193, pos. 18th, 40 laps

Sebastien Bourdais (STR2B-03): "This morning was a trouble-free session so I could learn the track for the first time. This afternoon, we had a tyre evaluation programme with long runs planned, but unfortunately we had a problem that sidelined me in the garage for quite some time. But I guess that's part of the game, dealing with the bad and the good in F1. This is a nice circuit, but of course the track started out very green and it changed quite dramatically, as we expected. Now we will see how tomorrow goes. Obviously, tomorrow the conditions will more closely resemble those we will encounter in qualifying and the race and hopefully we will be able to run trouble-free when it really matters."

First Practice Session
Best lap 1.29.363, pos. 14th, 32 laps
Second Practice Session
Best lap 1.29.605, pos. 20th, 11 laps