My wife and daughter were particularly unimpressed with my perky attitude which was regularly interspersed with snatches of "The Chain" and dancing around the bedroom with my daughter in my arms who looked more than a little disgruntled at such abuse at an early hour!
Webbo set the marker in FP1 with a last minute lap to oust teammate Vettel - delighted for him as, regardless of the fact that its only practice, it gives him a little psychological boost for the race and set his mind towards victory on Sunday morning.
In FP2 Button topped the timing sheet above Hamilton thus announcing the rebirth of McLaren - Can this translate into a race result? We'll have to wait and see. Button has form at this track and given a fast and reliable car would be one of the few who could guarantee a result. I've said in a previous post that I think Lewis will probably go out while trying a pass on degraded rubber (only in this first race mind you).
"Nadgers" Alonso showed strong pace coming third fastest in both sessions for the Prancing Horse but Massa's times did nothing to make me think that he is particularly motivated or considers himself anything other than a No.2. He made the point afterwards that they were both working on different aspects of the car BUT... (and as you can see its a big one!).
HRT got one car out of the garage for one installation lap. 107% here we come would appear to be the conclusion there, with one website suggesting that they will attempt to qualify one car only - attempt being the operative word in that sentence.
Chandhok lost the Lotus on his first lap after Turn 3 and put the car into the barrier - Trulli's time in FP2 were compromised by the fact he had to drive the Chandhok car so we can't read too much into his performance.
Williams may be regretting Maldonado already - Barrichello did ok with the 9th fastest time of the practice sessions but Maldonado is over two seconds off Ruben's pace and down in 18th on the timing sheets with only Lotus and Virgin below him. Bad start for the Rookie.
Schumacher showed that the Mercedes has pace as he clocked in at 6th overall but it seems clear (or as clear as mud given its only practice) that Mclaren, Ferrari and RBR are still the boys to beat. Nico clocked in 10th overall.
It's hard to say what you can take out of free practice but one thing is for sure and that's that McLaren have made huge progress between Barcelona and here. As Nadgers said afterwards:
"Nothing new yet and what else would you expect? These two free practice sessions have not actually revealed the real relative strengths of the teams: this morning Red Bull went well and in the afternoon it was McLaren's turn, with us and Mercedes always in the mix, while Williams and Renault also seem competitive".
No doubt Quali will sort all the confusion out in terms of raw speed, then all they've got to worry about is the dreaded reliability.
Free practice 2 Results:
| Position | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 1:25.854 | 32 |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren | 1:25.986 | 31 |
| 3 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1:26.001 | 28 |
| 4 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | 1:26.014 | 35 |
| 5 | Mark Webber | Red Bull | 1:26.283 | 33 |
| 6 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1:26.590 | 31 |
| 7 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1:26.789 | 34 |
| 8 | Sergio Pérez | Sauber | 1:27.101 | 39 |
| 9 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams | 1:27.280 | 34 |
| 10 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:27.448 | 23 |
| 11 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso | 1:27.525 | 31 |
| 12 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1:27.528 | 29 |
| 13 | Nick Heidfeld | Renault | 1:27.536 | 22 |
| 14 | Sebastién Buemi | Toro Rosso | 1:27.697 | 30 |
| 15 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber | 1:28.095 | 35 |
| 16 | Paul di Resta | Force India | 1:28.376 | 33 |
| 17 | Adrian Sutil | Force India | 1:28.583 | 31 |
| 18 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams | 1:29.386 | 29 |
| 19 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus | 1:30.829 | 22 |
| 20 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus | 1:30.912 | 23 |
| 21 | Jérôme D'Ambrosio | Virgin | 1:32.106 | 36 |
| 22 | Timo Glock | Virgin | 1:32.135 | 30 |
| 23 | Tonio Liuzzi | HRT | No Time | 1 |
| 24 | Narain Karthikeyan | HRT | No Time | 0 |
Free Practice 1 Results:
| Position | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mark Webber | Red Bull | 1:26.831 | 20 |
| 2 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | 1:27.158 | 19 |
| 3 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1:27.749 | 20 |
| 4 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:28.152 | 16 |
| 5 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams | 1:28.430 | 24 |
| 6 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 1:28.440 | 29 |
| 7 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren | 1:28.483 | 26 |
| 8 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1:28.690 | 14 |
| 9 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber | 1:28.725 | 13 |
| 10 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1:28.765 | 15 |
| 11 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1:28.842 | 20 |
| 12 | Nick Heidfeld | Renault | 1:28.928 | 14 |
| 13 | Adrian Sutil | Force India | 1:29.314 | 19 |
| 14 | Sebastién Buemi | Toro Rosso | 1:29.328 | 21 |
| 15 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams | 1:29.403 | 24 |
| 16 | Daniel Ricciardo | Toro Rosso | 1:29.468 | 23 |
| 17 | Sergio Pérez | Sauber | 1:29.643 | 18 |
| 18 | Nico Hülkenberg | Force India | 1:31.002 | 20 |
| 19 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus | 1:32.428 | 13 |
| 20 | Jérôme D'Ambrosio | Virgin Racing | 1:35.282 | 17 |
| 21 | Timo Glock | Virgin Racing | 1:35.289 | 15 |
| 22 | Karun Chandhok | Lotus | No Time | 1 |
| 23 | Tonio Liuzzi | HRT | No Time | 0 |
| 24 | Narain Karthikeyan | HRT | No Time | 0 |
