F1 Bahrain Blog: Force India top first practice

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Written by Kate Walker

Friday, 12 March 2010 10:25

Wow. This morning's practice session was full of surprises in the intra-team battles.

Jenson Button bested teammate Lewis Hamilton, Mark Webber posted a faster time than Sebastian Vettel, and Nico Rosberg must be sporting a mile-wide grin – his best time takes him to eighth on the timesheets, while the legendary Michael Schumacher came in tenth.

Of course, this is only a practice session, and I don't yet know who was trying out what in terms of fuel weights, new parts, and the like. But I imagine Vijay Mallaya is sporting a smile not dissimilar to the one found on Rosberg's face – Adrian Sutil came top of the timesheets with a 1.56.583, and teammate Liuzzi wasn't far behind, in at seventh with a 1.57.194.

The downer of this morning's session was the total lack of running for poor Karun Chandhok. As one of the hacks in the media centre put it, his car 'crapped out its hydraulics at 4am'. Not yet sure how long it's going to take them to get the car back on its feet – or on its feet, given that we were expecting a maiden run this morning – but with any luck the Indian driver will make his F1 debut this afternoon.

Fellow newbies Bruno Senna and Lucas di Grassi didn't post any times in this morning's session, but both men were out for installation laps.

So what does it all mean? Nothing much. Although there are already discussions going on in the media centre about the psychological importance of these times – Lewis won't be happy to have been beaten by Button, even though the difference between the two men was 0.095 seconds. I can't begin to comprehend how small of a fraction that is – F1 is a crazy world dominated by milliseconds, and it takes longer than that just to blink!

Similarly, Schumacher and Vettel are probably a bit grumpy about having come in second to their number one rivals. We'll see in the afternoon if that grumpy manifests itself in the form of motivation and added speed, or if there's a performance slump. I'd be surprised to see the latter in such pros – hopefully any demotivation will take a few more races to start affecting lap times.

But back to the timings. Alonso put in a sterling performance to come second for Ferrari, a fact hardly likely to shock. Teammate Massa was about 0.3s behind, but the two men were split by Robert Kubica, who was a surprise in third place with a time of 1.57.041. I say surprise because the Renault was generally thought to be off the pace when testing ended – if this performance continues, the boys at Enstone may just have dragged Renault out of its fallow period.

The full set of timings is below, and make of them what you will. Not much of a surprise to see almost all of the big four in the top ten, and equally unsurprising to see the new teams bringing up the rear – the fact that they're here and ready to race is impressive enough, given the timescales they were operating to.

Bring on the afternoon session! But keep checking girlracer for more updates. I've been challenged to get a racer or two in the girlracer hat, so we'll see if any of them agree... Kate Walker Girlracer Magazine http://www.girlracer.co.uk

Pos Driver  Team                     Time
1. Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1:56.583
2. Alonso         Ferrari                  1:56.766 + 0.183
3. Kubica         Renault                  1:57.041 + 0.458
4. Massa          Ferrari                  1:57.055 + 0.472
5. Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1:57.068 + 0.485
6. Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes       1:57.163 + 0.580
7. Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes   1:57.194 + 0.611
8. Rosberg        Mercedes GP              1:57.199 + 0.616
9. Webber         Red Bull Racing          1:57.255 + 0.672
10. Schumacher    Mercedes GP              1:57.662 + 1.079
11. Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari       1:57.722 + 1.139
12. Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth      1:57.894 + 1.311
13. Vettel         Red Bull Racing          1:57.943 + 1.360
14. Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari       1:58.399 + 1.816
15. Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1:58.782 + 2.199
16. Petrov         Renault                  1:58.880 + 2.297
17. de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari           2:00.250 + 3.667
18. Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari           2:01.388 + 4.805
19. Glock          Virgin-Cosworth          2:03.680 + 7.097
20. Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth           2:03.848 + 7.265
21. Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth           2:03.970 + 7.387
22. di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth
23. Senna          HRT-Cosworth
24. Chandhok       HRT-Cosworth

Comments (5)

|2010-03-12 11:52:22 Andrew Pep

Good to see Button / Hamilton so close! This should be a fun season to watch
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|2010-03-12 12:22:06 Kate

It's going to be thrilling, that's for sure! So many teams are so close - lap times on the board now span 10 seconds, but that's including the new teams.

Top ten are split by three seconds, but that will drop a lot as the session continues.
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|2010-03-12 13:20:18 Avinash

Good to see Force India topping the first practice session. Looks like Force India will be the force to reckon with in 2010.
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|2010-03-12 13:40:45 Kate

I'd love to see them do really well, and I think Sutil and Liuzzi will make a good combo.

My problem is there are loads of teams I'd like to see do well - I have far too many favourites.
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