Practice One - Webber leads the way in Sao Paulo 16 Oct 2009
Brawn GP’s Rubens Barrichello split the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel after Friday morning’s first practice session for the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos.
In a session interrupted at one stage by light drizzle which rendered the bumpy track greasy as well for a while, Webber set the fastest time of 1m 12.463s, which compared with Felipe Massa’s fuel-weighted 2008 pole time of 1m 12.358s in the Ferrari. Vettel had lapped his sister RB5 in 1m 12.932s, but had this bettered by Barrichello close to the end when the Brazilian posted 1m 12.900s and then improved that marginally to 1m 12.874s.
Heikki Kovalainen joined the aces right at the end with 1m 12.989s for McLaren, just ahead of team mate Lewis Hamilton who lapped in 1m 13.048s. Right behind the world champion came Kazuki Nakajima on 1m 13.067s for Williams, and as usual the times in the midfield group were incredibly close.
Title contender Jenson Button lapped his Brawn in 1m 13.141s to jump from eighth to seventh on his final lap, then came Williams’ Nico Rosberg (1m 13.147s), Force India’s Adrian Sutil (1m 13.232s), Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen (1m 13.321s), Toyota’s Jarno Trulli (1m 13.326s), BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld (1m 13.464s), Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi (1m 13.503s), BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica (1m 13.563s), Ferrari’s Giancarlo Fisichella (1m 13.619s), Renault’s Fernando Alonso (1m 13.787s) and Force India’s Tonio Liuzzi (1m 13.829s).
At the back, debutant Kamui Kobayashi took his Toyota round in 1m 14.029s for 18th ahead of Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari on 1m 14.040s and Renault’s Romain Grosjean on 1m 14.173s.
There were several minor incidents: Grosjean destroyed a foam advertising sign with an off in Turn Eight, having already been off earlier in Turn 12; Barrichello went off in Turn 10, Alonso went grass tracking in Turn One, Sutil went wide in Turn Eight, and Buemi got out of shape while chasing Liuzzi and spun his Toro Rosso into the wall in Turn Eight, damaging the right rear suspension.
