Practice 2: Hamilton fastest as rain arrives

Mar.26 (YF1) Light rain greeted the Formula 1 fraternity as the second free practice session of the Australian Grand Prix weekend at Albert Park in Melbourne. Thereafter the session alternated from dry to wet back to dry again.

Lap times in the first free practices tend to be somewhat irrelevant as drivers and teams tend to adhere to a specific programme to dial themselves into the weekend. The rain interrupted second session on the first day in Melbourne will have done little to indicate race pace or suggest qualifying form.

In the early dry period Lewis Hamilton (McLaren Mercedes) clocked the fastest time within the first half hour, as he and his team mate Jenson Button traded fastest laps in the dry window of opportunity. The session ended with Hamilton having the upper hand with the fastest time of the day ahead of Button.

Shortly after the 30 minute mark the rain started bucketing down. When it rains in Melbourne it pours! Half an hour later the rain stopped and the track began to dry rapidly and by the hour mark the drivers were on the dry pace again.

Mark Webber (Red Bull Renault) will have Aussie pulses racing as he showed good form by setting the third fastest time, fractionally quicker than Michael Schumacher (Mercedes GP) who reported greater comfort in the cockpit of his MGPW01.

Vitaly Petrov (Renault) was fifth quickest with a time set in the early dry stint, with Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso Ferrari) sixth fastest.

Adrian Sutil (Force India Mercedes) was clearly not happy that he had to sit out the first session to give way to the team’s reserve driver Paul Di Resta. Nevertheless the German was seventh fastest ahead of team mate Vitantonio Liuzzi who already had 90 minutes around Albert Park under his belt.

Ninth on the timing sheets was Rubens Barrichello (Williams Cosworth) with Nico Rosberg (Mercedes GP) rounding up the top ten.

Down the order were the Ferrari duo who were clearly not tempted to do any hot laps and appeared focused on heavy fuel load laps. Fernando Alonso ended the session 15th on the timing screens with Felipe Massa 17th.

Once again the Cosworth powered Lotus’s were clearly the better of the newcomers with Heikki Kovalainen 18^th fastest and Jarno Trulli 20^th. Notably Kovalainen ended the session quicker than Jaime Alguersuari (Toro Rosso Ferrari) who split the green and yellow cars with the 19^th best time. Kovalainen was down to 4 seconds off the fastest lap, the team appear to have found a half second between the sessions on day one.

In contrast to Lotus were Virgin Racing who were problem plagued throughout the day. Timo Glock’s lack of running in the first session got a little better as he managed to complete nine laps after the earlier gear box problem was sorted. Lucas Di Grassi had a telemetry box problem which curtailed to a couple of laps.

HRT’s relatively problem free first session in Melbourne appears to be a false dawn, particularly for luckless Karun Chandhok whose car stopped at the end of the pitlane rendering the Indian to spectator status again.

Bruno Senna said earlier of his problem free first session on Twitter, “A ‘normal’ practice session/test. Were one of the first cars out on track and ran all session well. Team and car are both really getting there. Aero adjustments helping and next we need to improve the car over the bumps on this track, but now it’s beginning to become fun!”

No doubt the fun ended as the Brazilian did not even do a lap in the second session and, to add more misery to his first day in Melbourne, was slapped with a 1600 Euros for speeding in the pit lane.

The pitlane speed at Albert Park was reduced from 100 km/h to 60. Another victim was rookie Petrov who also overdid it in the pitlane and was 7000 Euros after breaking the limit by 34.6 km/h.”

Practice 2 best lap times