Practice One - Ferrari first and last in Belgium 14 Sep 2007
Ferrari drew first blood in Friday’s opening practice for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, but while one of their cars was fastest the other was slowest.
Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest lap of 1m 47.339s to head the McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton (1m 47.881s and 1m 47.994s), but Felipe Massa’s F2007 speared off the road at Rivage (Turn 8) after only two laps and the Brazilian was left stranded in the gravel without a time.
As expected, BMW Sauber and Williams also looked strong, with Nick Heidfeld fourth and Nico Rosberg fifth on 1m 48.052s and 1m 48.372s respectively. Their team mates were with them, with Robert Kubica sixth on 1m 48.605s and Alex Wurz seventh on 1m 48.920s.
Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, Renault’s Heikki Kovalainen and Honda’s Jenson Button completed the top 10, on 1m 48.994s, 1m 49.138s and 1m 49.330s respectively. Kovalainen was off the road twice, once in Les Combes and once at Blanchimont, without sustaining any damage.
Giancarlo Fisichella was 11th for Renault on 1m 49.380s, chased by Toyota’s Ralf Schumacher (1m 49.548s), the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and David Coulthard (1m 49.894s and 1m 49.931s), Honda’s Rubens Barrichello (1m 50.264s), Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel (1m 50.482s), the amazingly evenly matched Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson (1m 50.640s and 1m 50.648s) for Super Aguri, and Adrian Sutil (1m 50.768s) in the Spyker.
Down the back with Massa were Tonio Liuzzi, whose Toro Rosso stopped at Rivage after he had lapped it in 1m 51.628s, and Sakon Yamamoto, whose Spyker stopped after a lap of 1m 52.379s.
