Practice One - Trulli on top as rain arrives in Belgium 28 Aug 2009
Rain partway through the first practice session here at Spa on Friday morning left an unusual list of times. Toyota’s Jarno Trulli slipped in a lap of 1m 49.675s to go fastest from Brawn GP’s Jenson Button (1m 50.283s) and Renault’s Fernando Alonso (1m 50.368s), before the rain began and left their times unassailable.
Behind them, Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari were fourth and fifth for Toro Rosso with respective laps of 1m 51.045s and 1m 51.529s. Rubens Barrichello was sixth for Brawn GP on 1m 52.321s ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen on 1m 52.930s, then came McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen on 1m 53.383s and BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica on 1m 53.650s. Luca Badoer was 10th on 1m 55.068s in the second Ferrari, and after that the times opened out as divers failed to get dry runs.
Giancarlo Fisichella was Force India’s lead runner with 2m 03.972s, ahead of Williams’ Nico Rosberg (2m 04.505s), Renault’s Romain Grosjean (2m 05.513s), BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld (2m 05.614s), Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima (2m 05.705s), Force India’s Adrian Sutil (2m 05.839s), Red Bull’s Mark Webber (2m 06.181s) and Toyota’s Timo Glock (2m 06.331s).
The rain was a boost for Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, who is having to conserve laps on Fridays because he now has to make two Renault engines last for the final six races after his problems in Valencia. He did an out lap and nothing more, while McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton did only four exploratory laps. Neither set a time.
In many ways it was a wasted and inconclusive session - unless, of course, the rain continues…
