The first Friday practice session at Suzuka (Part 2)
The first quarter of the practice session was all about running some straight-line tests to provide the engineers with constant aerodynamic data.
The Practice session continued with Alguersuari on track in his Toro Rosso and it seemed that he might score the first timed lap of the session but decided not to even though he had the track all to himself.
The track was again empty by the 16 minutes marker of the first session. Hamilton decided to take the advantage and left the pits to try to get the timed lap before he was joined by his teammate Jenson Button during his second installation lap. Both of the
drivers did not score a timed lap as they were running some tests for their new development parts as stated by McLaren. Hamilton came back on track after 20mins passed into the session to continue his run. Button joined him once more as McLaren began to evaluate
its new rear wing. Sakon Yamamoto decided to come out of the pits to test his HRT for the Japanese Grand Prix for the weekend.
Michael Schumacher watched his progress as Yamamoto continued his run on his lap. Despite the unstable conditions expected on Saturday, the teams seemed reluctant to go on track, waiting for the tracks conditions to improve.
Yamamoto began the first timed lap after crossing the start finish line and was joined by Adrian Sutil in his Force India on track.
Finally after almost half an hour into the session, Yamamoto scored the first timed lap of the session at a 1m42.950s.
Jerome D’Ambrosio was also on track and had to move out of Adrian Sutil’s way at the Casio Triangle. More drivers came out for their first run on the track including Nico Hulkenberg, Bruno Senna, and Sebastian Buemi. D’Ambrosio scored his first timed lap
and became the second fastest behind Yamamoto who lowered the benchmark time by almost a second.
Hulkenberg came towards the end of timed lap and scored the fastest lap at the half an hour marker while Yamamoto improved his time. Meanwhile, Kobayashi came out on his Sauber and timed the fastest lap followed by Sebastian Buemi timing in as the third
fastest on track.
Kamui Kobayashi improved his time and improved his benchmark. The drivers started to time in constantly now. Michael Schumacher was tired of watching the show now and decided to come out of the pits followed by Mark Webber and Rubens Barrichello. Felipe
Massa scored his first timed lap to go third fastest for the session until now.
Kobayashi explored the track further while Hulkenberg took the top spot after scoring the fastest lap. Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg joined the racetrack while Nico Hulkenberg decided to return to the pits.
Kobayashi slid his car along the inside of the kerbs of the second corner before approaching the bridge. Michael popped into second place out of nowhere with a good lap. Lewis Hamilton finally decided to go on a flying lap and clocked to top the times. Mark
Webber was not able to score a good time in his first lap as he scored the 15th fastest time before scoring a rather decent time to time in at 8th place.
Vetel also struggled in his first flying lap while Rubens scored the second best time of the session before Mark beat his time to take the second spot. After the 40-minute marker, things got interesting as many cars were now scoring some great times rapidly.
However, near the 45-minute mark, Lewis Hamilton shocked the crowd as he crashed his McLaren before heading in to the second Degner. Sebastian Vettel took full advantage of this opportunity and scored the fastest time of the season after that. Hamilton car
received some serious damage and this does not look good for the British driver.
The incident affected several drivers while Hamilton stood by the stands staring at his battered car. This will be a vital blow to his career.
Meanwhile, Vettel stayed out on the track but was not able to improve obviously, as the yellow flags came out on the track following Hamilton’s crash. Lewis had to head back to the pits in disappointment.
Vettel topped the timings until the 50 min marker followed by Hamilton in second, Kubica in third and Webber in fourth.
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