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Alonso fastest in wet first practice at Spa
Fernando Alonso has set the quickest lap time in a soaking wet first practice session at Spa on Friday morning. The Spaniard’s Ferrari, which could circulate in no quicker than two minutes, led the way from the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton and Renault of Robert Kubica. Leading Red Bull Sebastian Vettel ended the period in fourth.
Rain was already falling in Belgium as spectators filtered their way into the legendary Spa-Francorchamps on Friday morning although the showers had abated by the time the track action began at 10am. With more expected, however, a number of cars left the pits in the opening minutes for installation laps.
With the ambient temperature remaining at 18°C (64°F) throughout, the track figures managed to increase by a single degree to match those of the air, not assisted by a thick layer of cloud cover which deprives the Ardennes venue of sunshine until the final 20 minutes.
Sporadic heavy showers caused many to spend more time in the pits than usual, with Kubica not setting his time until the final moments of the session. In fact, as more heavy rain fell with 35 of the 90 minutes to go, all cars remained in the garages for a full ten minutes before Schumacher, Alguersuari and Kovalainen ventured out.
Considering the conditions, there were remarkably few incidents although Schumacher could be seen skipping over the Bus Stop Chicane, Kovalainen took a trip through the Stavelot gravel trap and de la Rosa, Hülkenberg and Petrov all suffered minor offs at the modified Les Combes, which features an asphalt run-off area containing speed ramps for the first time.
As team-mate Felipe Massa (11th) ran onto the slippery kerbs at Stavelot and Alguersuari did likewise at Pouhon, Alonso – at the top of the timesheets since shortly before 10:45 – reduced the leading effort in the dying moments although the former double World Champion, who has never won at Spa, was unable to break the 2-minute barrier.
Further down the field, Hispania experimented with engine settings – meaning Yamamoto’s best lap time was three and a half minutes in the opening stages – as Renault introduce the f-duct for the first time.
Toro Rosso’s Sébastien Buemi ran into trouble again, though, and was forced to spend much of the session rooted to the pit lane due to gearbox problems.
Behind the leading quarter, Adrian Sutil made the top five for Force India ahead of current title holder Jenson Button, second Red Bull Mark Webber on the Australian’s 33rd birthday, Kobayashi’s Sauber, Barrichello’s Williams on the Brazilian’s 300th Grand Prix weekend and the Mercedes of Schumacher, which completes the first ten.
Second free practice at Spa begins at 2pm local time (BST +1) and can also be followed live via GPUpdate.net
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