The first Friday practice session at Suzuka (Part 1)
The long awaited Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka is officially under way after an exhilarating first practice session on Friday. The top five drivers have just four races between them to settle the championship. It will be interesting to see who tops the session,
as it would give us an idea of how the top three teams will perform in the later sessions.
The drivers have 3 hours on a Friday to set their cars up for the coming qualifying session and race on Saturday and Sunday respectively. Fernando Alonso is currently in very strong form but it will not be easy for him to tackle the aggressiveness of the McLarens
and the RB6 engine of the Red Bull. The temperature was between 25-28 degrees and it seems that it will remain constant throughout the first session. It was sunny and bright at dawn giving great visibility at the Suzuka Friday practice.
The incoming rain is nowhere in sight currently in the west and southwest areas in Japan but is expected to hit the track in the evening.
“Suzuka is a wonderful circuit and one which is very challenging for drivers and tyre engineers alike. As we found last year, there is a newer track surface on the east side of the circuit and this delivers different grip levels from those found on the older
surface of the west side,” said Bridgestone's Hirohide Hamashima.
A soggy day for final practice and qualifying is expected tomorrow so the teams will get the best of both conditions on the track.
The Practice session began with Jaime Alguersuari leading Sakon Yamamoto on the track before Jarno Trulli joined them shortly afterwards. Kamui Kobayashi, Vitaly Petrov and Timo Glock decided to come out as well and Sebastian Buemi did not want to stay behind
so he left the pits as well. Felipe Massa began his installation lap after a min in to the session along with Robert Kubica, Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel to check the conditions on the track.
None of the drivers went for a second lap after checking the track on their installation lap. Michael Schumacher decided to come out on the track after watching the drivers come back in to the pits making his first visit to the track since 2006. Lewis Hamilton
was the first of the McLaren drivers to hit the track followed by the championship leader Mark Webber near the 5 min marker in the session. All the drivers decided to come back to the pits after a heavily revised installation lap.
21 out of 24 drivers completed their checking lap by the 6-minute marker. The engineers were in motion after the data was downloaded to their systems. Alonso decided to be the last man to take a tour of the track before completing an installation lap.
Mark Webber decided to come out of his car and take off his helmet to help his engineers while Alonso decided to tour the track for a second time, as he wanted to collect some constant-speed aerodynamic data for his team. After two laps, Alonso decided to
come back in to the pits and silence hit the track after that. The drivers were busy with their engineers now for a moment before Sebastian Buemi broke the silence on the track with his Toro Rosso as he decided to hit the track.
The Sauber driver, Nick Heidfeld joined him for an early run. Buemi drove for two laps before coming back into the pits while Heidfeld came back after a single back before the two Renaults decided to come out on the track.
Vettel brought his RB6 back into the pits and did not set a single timed lap yet. Fernando Alonso was the only one out of the top five to score a second consecutive lap. It is quite understandable as the teams wanted to run some straight-line tests in the
early stages of the session.
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