Australian GP - First practice

After a long winter Formula One burst back into life this afternoon at Albert Park. While the teams have put in many thousands of kilometres in pre-season testing, the first practice session of the first Grand Prix of the season is always a little special.

While the diffuser issue dominated the headlines on Thursday, today the teams got down to their Grand Prix weekend programmes and it was Nico Rosberg who set the pace for the Williams Toyota team with a best lap of 1:26.687s, five-hundredths of a second ahead of team-mate Kazuki Nakajima.

Williams, along with Brawn Mercedes and Toyota, remain embroiled in the rear diffuser controversy, but the final laps of the session saw the team move to the top of the timesheets ahead of Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari who recorded his best lap on the softer option Bridgestone Potenza.

Rubens Barrichello underlined the pre-season testing form of the new Brawn Mercedes with the fourth fastest time, half a second adrift of Rosberg, while team-mate Jenson Button was sixth best in the second BGP 001.

Heikki Kovalainen ran well for McLaren Mercedes to split the Brawn duo in fifth position while team-mate Lewis Hamilton had a much tougher time of things in the second MP4-24. Hamilton, the defending race winner and world champion, suffered numerous off-track moments and ended the session just 16th fastest.

Felipe Massa was seventh fastest in the second Ferrari ahead of Timo Glock who led the way for the Toyota team.
Adrian Sutil impressed in the Mercedes-powered Force India with the ninth fastest time, but may have opted for the option tyre for his quick run.

Fernando Alonso sat out the first out of the session in his Renault before posting the tenths best time. The R29 appeared especially twitchy and the Spaniard seemed keen to give the kerbs a wide berth. Team-mate Nelson Piquet survived a spin and was a lowly 18th.

Nick Heidfeld led the BMW Sauber charge with the 11th best time ahead of Trulli in the second Toyota and team-mate Robert Kubica. Giancarlo Fisichella was 14th ahead of rookie Sebastien Buemi who made a late gain to record the 15th best time.

It was a poor first session of the season from the Red Bull Renault team with Mark Webber completing just seven laps before a drive-shaft issue sidelines his RB5. Team-mate Sebastian Vettel fared even worse as a hydraulic problem saw him out of the session almost before it really began, Webber was 17th best ahead of Piquet, Sebastien Bourdais in the second Toro Rosso and Vettel.