Practice 1: Kubica fastest early down under

Mar.26 (YF1 & GMM) Robert Kubica in the Renault R30 ended the opening free practice session of the Australian Grand Prix weekend at the top of the timing sheets for the first time this season. Under warm and sunny skies, with a hint of wind, Formula 1 action got underway at Albert Park in Melbourne. After an hour and a half the clouds had moved in…

In their build-up press releases prior to the weekend Renault announced their intent of getting both their cars into Q3. They delivered early as Kubica was fastest of all, with his Russian team mate Vitaly Petrov ninth quickest after surviving a spin.

Nico Rosberg (Mercedes GP) was second quickest almost a second and a half faster than team mate Michael Schumacher who was down in 12th. Inevitably controversy follows the seven times world champion like a shadow, more of that later…

2009 Melbourne winner Jenson Button (McLaren Mercedes) was third fastest with team mate Lewis Hamilton seventh quickest.

Fastest of the Ferrari duo was Felipe Massa who ended the session fourth fastest, with Bahrain GP winner Fernando Alonso sixth on the timing screens.

Splitting the Maranello cars, in fifth, was Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Renault) who was a second faster than Mark Webber who was 14th fastest on home soil.

Sebastien Buemi was eighth quickest in the Toro Rosso, fractionally quicker than the Force India duo of Vitantonio Liuzzi and Paul Di Resta making his F1 practice debut. The latter standing in for Adrian Sutil and the only reserve driver in action on the day.

Kamui Kobayashi had a drama packed session which saw him lose part of the front wing of his Sauber after clipping a cone in Turn 11, casuing the first redflag stoppage of the day. The Japanese driver was third quickest at the time.

Twenty minutes later another red flag,  this time the wing appeared to break on its own in the middle of the supports as he approached the braking zone for turn 3.

Concerned FIA official Jo Bauer visited the Swiss team’s garage for an explanation, but it is said that Sauber team members are not sure what caused the problems and that the team has only three spare front wings remaining for the rest of the Melbourne weekend.

At this time Schumacher went on to controversially set a fast time amid the waving red flags and flashing red lights which caused some consternation in the pitlane.

In the other Sauber, Pedro de la Rosa also had problems when he stopped out on track with a dozen minutes left in the session. He was 15th quickest.

Lotus were again the best of the new teams with Jarno Trulli 19th quickest despite spending large chunks of time in the pits with problems, apparently hydraulic related. Team mate Heikki Kovalainen was fractionally slower, 20th on the timing sheets. The duo were 4.7 seconds off the pace set by Kubica.

Lucas di Grassi (Virgin Racing) was 21st fastest, racking up some valuable seat time with 25 laps in the bag. Team mate Timo Glock spent majority of his time in the garage as mechanical problems afflicted his car. As a result the German only managed 8 laps in total and was at the very bottom of the timing sheets. Di Grassi was nearly six seconds adrift of the fastest Renault.

Relief all around for Hispania Racing as both Bruno Senna and Kraun Chandhok did meaningful and extremely valuable mileage, albeit 6.4 seconds and 7.3 seconds respectively off the pace. Chandhok was particularly pleased with the track time he got compared to his ill fated Bahrain weekend.

Practice 1 best lap times