Practice One - first blood to Hamilton in China 17 Oct 2008
Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa reopened their battle for the world championship by setting the two fastest times in Friday morning’s opening practice session for the Chinese Grand Prix.
Hamilton was the consistent pacesetter, lapping his McLaren in 1m 35.630s to beat the Brazilian’s Ferrari by 0.390s as Massa posted 1m 36.020s. Kimi Raikkonen was right behind his team mate with 1m 36.052s, and Heikki Kovalainen was well in touch in the second McLaren with 1m 36.103s.
The third title contender, Robert Kubica, was fifth for BMW Sauber on 1m 36.507s, just ahead of Fernando Alonso, the winner of the last two Grands Prix, with 1m 36.661s for Renault.
Nick Heidfeld led the next group with 1m 37.040s in the second BMW Sauber, ahead of Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Bourdais (1m 37.070s), Renault’s Nelson Piquet (1m 37.180s), Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel (1m 37.278s), Red Bull’s Mark Webber (1m 37.491s), Honda’s Jenson Button (1m 37.619s), Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima (1m 37.630s), Red Bull’s David Coulthard and Williams’ Nico Rosberg (1m 37.638s), Toyota’s Timo Glock (1m 37.664s) and Honda’s Rubens Barrichello (1m 37.827s).
Toyota’s Jarno Trulli (1m 38.219s), and the Force Indias of Adrian Sutil (1m 38.285s) and Giancarlo Fisichella (1m 38.479s) brought up the rear.
It was a relatively uneventful session as the track rubbered in. Glock, Webber, Barrichello, Bourdais and Kubica all slid off the road at one stage, Piquet did ‘a Hamilton’ and went into the gravel on the entry to the pit road (but was able to extract himself) and both Raikkonen and Trulli spun.
