McLaren Mercedes - Chinese GP - Free Practice

Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton ended the afternoon practice session in Shanghai with the ninth and 13th fastest times respectively with both drivers encouraged with the latest developments to the MP4-24 package.

Kovalainen ran a couple of installs on the option tyre before beginning his day’s running, using the prime to notch up three further runs. He completed a comparison between the old and new front-wing specs although reported a persistent issue with the hydraulic flap system, which compromised his consistency.

As with most Friday afternoons, the team ran a tyre comparison programme, particularly looking at the stint-life of the super-soft Bridgestone option, which is expected to be more marginal here than at other circuits.

Kovalainen started the session on primes, running a five-lap stint and a longer eight-lap run on a heavier fuel-load. Towards the end of the session, he did a ten lap run on options, setting a 1:39.130s best and being impressed by the tyre’s consistency. He ended the day with a couple of quick laps, setting his best time of the day with a 1:36.674s.

Hamilton started the session using the new six-plane front wing and immediately reported an improvement in the front-end. After two initial install laps, Hamilton completed three shorter runs.

Between-session bodywork changes to the car meant Hamilton began second practice a little later than planned as the team turned their focus towards tyre evaluations over longer stints. Hamilton did three runs, starting with a shorter five-lap stint on primes before testing the super-soft option tyre which showcased the limited life of the softer rubber.

Heikki Kovalainen
“I’m very impressed by the performance upgrades for this race. We still need to do more work to find the best balance, but our car definitely feels more stable here.”

Lewis Hamilton
“The car instantly felt a bit better. I can definitely feel more stability and downforce from the front.
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We’ve definitely made a step forward for this race. The car feels much stronger through the corners and I think we’ve got a very positive baseline for the rest of the weekend.”

“My first run on the options felt quite consistent. The drop-off definitely feels manageable. This was a good day, although we still need to work on MP4-24’s medium- and high-speed balance.”

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal
“The team, both at the track and back in the factory, has done a fantastic job to get these bodywork upgrades to Shanghai – and initial analysis would suggest that they have contributed to a slight uplift in our overall competitiveness."

"We are still working on MP4-24’s overall balance, but nonetheless concluded some productive tyre evaluation work. Heikki’s day was compromised by a hydraulic system problem which failed to adjust his front wing flaps correctly, a fault that distracted both him and his engineers from their regular programme.”

Norbert Haug, Mercedes-Benz Motorsport VP
“Seeing Lewis in P1 after this morning’s session brought back some good memories – although we are aware that the team’s package is not yet competitive."

"Still, the improvements we have made to the car – which are particularly relentless at the moment – should see us making another encouraging step forward. Sunday’s race will be greatly influenced by the performance over a stint of the Bridgestone super-soft, but our consistency on both tyres looks quite okay at this early stage of the weekend.”

Williams Toyota - Chinese GP - Free Practice

Nico Rosberg has shown well in nearly every practice session so far this year and today was no exception as the Williams Toyota racer posted the second fastest time in the afternoon practice session in China.

Rosberg completed a second run on the super soft option tyre and improved his previous best time by three-tenths of a second to split the Brawn Mercedes duo of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello.

Team-mate Kazuki Nakajima was six-tenths of a second adrift and ended the afternoon seventh fastest of the 20 runners.

Nico Rosberg
"It’s been an interesting day for us. We’ve learnt a lot, particularly about the tyres and how to get the best out of them here. The one major thing for us at the moment though is that this season we have consistency from one track to another.
We’re now going to a race and not getting any big surprises as we seem to have learnt from our mistakes from last year."

Kazuki Nakajima
"It was a bit difficult out there for me today. The tyres were behaving strangely this morning but they did improve a little this afternoon. I was also struggling to find a good balance. I now need to see where I can improve for qualifying tomorrow. We’ll see how we go."

Red Bull Renault - Chinese GP - Free Practice

Fernando Alonso remains upbeat following Friday practice for the Chinese Grand Prix, despite recording just the 19th best time in the afternoon session.

While the team acknowledge that they have yet to find the perfect setup for the R29 challenger at this circuit, they remain confident that they will make progress ahead of the all-important qualifying hour.

Nelson Piquet was the quicker of the two Renault racers on this occasion with the Brazilian recording the 16th fastest time.

Fernando Alonso
“Although we are at the bottom of the timesheets, I don’t think we should be too worried as we concentrated more on race configuration today. Tomorrow morning in the third free practice session we will be preparing for qualifying and so I think we can remain optimistic for the rest of the weekend." "We need to try to reach Q3, as we did in Malaysia, and aim to score as many points as possible. I think overall today we struggled to find the right set-up, but even looking at the times, we still have high hopes for this weekend.”

Nelson Piquet
“The track conditions were quite poor early on but later in the day things were a bit better.
We improved the car between the two sessions, but we still need to find more performance and I’m still not totally happy with the set-up. So we still have a lot of work to do tomorrow morning to make sure we get the most from qualifying.”

Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
"The track was a bit dusty this morning to start with, but it soon picked up. The car has a little bit of oversteer, but we worked on the balance of the car and made some improvements. The super-soft tyre is performing better than we expected. The medium tyre still remains the better race tyre. Clearly there is work to do but we have more improvements to fit to the car tomorrow. So we are hopeful of moving up the order."

Toro Rosso Ferrari - Chinese GP - Free Practice

With additional development aero parts from Red Bull Technologies, Toro Rosso Ferrari got the Chinese Grand Prix weekend off to a strong start with Sebastien Bourdais recording the tenth best lap in both the morning and afternoon practice session.

Team-mate Sebastien Buemi also ran well as the Swiss rookie posted the 15th best time, less than four-tenths off Bourdais.

Sebastien Bourdais
“Our weekend seems to have started off quite well. We have made progress in terms of understanding the car and using it to its best. There is still some work to do, specifically in terms of making better use of the Option tyre."

"Actually I was quite surprised to see how well they are holding up and they definitely have more than one lap in them. I’m not saying we’ll run them for 30 laps, but it’s much better than expected. We can definitely see that the small updates we have on the car since Malaysia are working well.”

Sebastien Buemi
“It’s my first time here and beforehand I spent a lot of time on the Red Bull Technology Simulator and it was definitely a big help and I plan to use it more in the future. It is difficult to quantify, but for sure it helps."

"I had a technical problem in the morning which cost me some time, but everything was back to normal this afternoon and we were able to make a step forward. We look more competitive than in Malaysia and we are definitely improving. I didn’t get a perfect lap today, so I think I can do a lot better tomorrow. I like the track; it’s very big, very new, very everything!”

BMW Sauber - Chinese GP - Free Practice

As usual on a Friday, the BMW Sauber team used both free practice sessions for race preparation.

For the first time the kinetic energy recovery system was not only used on Nick Heidfeld’s car, but also on the F1.09 of Robert Kubica.

Both 90 minute sessions went without any technical failures with Kubica ending the afternoon 17th fastest just ahead of Heidfeld.

Robert Kubica
"We completed our standard Friday programme and tried to learn more about the nature of the track and to understand the tyre compounds. While the option tyres are quite fragile, it is difficult to make the prime tyre work. Additionally, this was the first time I was running KERS at a Grand Prix weekend. There were a lot of tests to do. Now we have to check and evaluate the data."

Nick Heidfeld
"As is normal for us on Fridays we focused on tyre evaluation for the race.
They do not really work as we would like them to. We now have to try to improve the balance of the car."

Willy Rampf, Head of Engineering
"Our concentration today, as usual, was on race preparation and, as expected, we completed the full programme. At the moment we are not satisfied with the results. For the first time both our drivers used the KERS. The positive side was we did not have any technical problems."

Force India Mercedes - Chinese GP - Free Practice

The third event of season got underway today in Shanghai with two 90 minute free practice sessions.

As the track is unused for racing activities for the greater part of the year it typically takes some time for a layer of rubber to be laid down and, with this in mind, Force India adjusted its programme to conduct the bulk of the running in the afternoon's session.

Both Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella completed their programmes of set-up optimisation and comparing the tyre compounds available this weekend.

Despite the odd spin, Sutil had a strong day as he set the 14th quickest time in the morning and the 11th in the afternoon, just over one second from the pace-setting Brawn GP.

Team-mate Fisichella had a tougher day as he struggled to find a good balance on the VJM02, but with 50 laps over the day he gathered lots of information to improve overnight.

Adrian Sutil
"It is a change to be here at this time of year. We are used to having around 30 degrees here so with the cooler temperatures it's much easier to drive although the tyres take a bit longer to warm up. The medium tyres are okay over the longer run, but very hard over a single lap. The super soft on the other hand is fine for one lap but not as bad as we expected over the longer runs. Overall it went okay, we completed our work and the general balance is good.
I'm pleased with the position so I think it was a good start."

Giancarlo Fisichella
"I'm not particularly happy with how today went. I am struggling with the car balance at the moment. It's not consistent just yet and I don't feel entirely comfortable. At the moment we don't have a problem with the tyres - in these temperatures we are pretty much okay. We have some ideas of what we can do so I think we will improve for tomorrow."

Dominic Harlow, Chief Race Engineer
"This weekend is going to be all about how we use the dry tyres and our Friday programme reflected this. We tried a lot of different things in a structured test and the VJM02 has been reliable and responsive to changes so far. The track was quite green today and hence low grip but it will evolve over the next two days and that will be something we have to account for as we approach qualifying and the race. It will be another tight qualifying session tomorrow."

Toyota - Chinese GP - Free Practice

Toyota today began preparations for the Chinese Grand Prix with a day of practice at the Shanghai International Circuit.

Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock both had full days of practice as they work towards Saturday and Sunday. The TF109s feature aerodynamic updates this weekend and they collected data throughout both sessions.

During the morning session, Trulli had a slow in-lap due to an electrical problem but it did not hamper his programme too much.

In the afternoon both drivers sampled the softer of the two Bridgestone tyre compounds in preparation for qualifying and the race. Trulli ended the day sixth fastest with Glock eighth.

Jarno Trulli
"That was a busy Friday for me. This morning we had an electrical problem which cost us a bit of track time but we recovered to complete our programme of work on set-up and tyres. The track surface wasn't in fantastic condition this morning but it improved during the day. In general I'm still not happy with the car's balance and pace so I hope we can analyse the data tonight and aim for better tomorrow. Then we can target another strong result on Sunday."

Timo Glock
"So far things are going okay for us. The track was quite tricky this morning because there wasn't much grip. I was sliding around on the green track and had to find a way to get the car together.
But over the course of the day we sorted out a lot in terms of the set-up. The second free practice session was better and the car felt more together. So we have more work to do to get the car in the right direction for tomorrow. But overall this has not been a bad start to the weekend."

Dieter Gass, Chief Engineer Race and Test
"We made it through our programme without major issues on the car so that was a solid start to the weekend. Jarno did have a slow in-lap this morning with an electrical problem but it didn't unduly affect our programme. That included a test of some new aerodynamic and suspension development parts which we completed successfully. The consistency of the tyres doesn't seem to be as much of a drama as we were expecting, so that is good news for the race on Sunday. The lap times seem to confirm our good form from the first two races so we are confident for the rest of the weekend."

Red Bull Renault - Chinese GP - Free Practice

Red Bull Renault may not have scored the points they would have hoped for in the first two rounds of the new season, but they got off to a solid start today in Shanghai with Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel recording the fourth and fifth fastest times in the afternoon session.

Mark Webber
“We did the normal tyre comparisons today, which are important ahead of Sunday as they might be quite a challenge here. The guys did a great job and the car ran faultlessly, which is always a benefit on a Friday."

"We’ve dried out from Malaysia and, instead, we had perfect driving conditions today, so we’ll see how we go tomorrow. I enjoyed it out there.”

Sebastian Vettel
“Overall, it was a quite good day.
Unfortunately, in the second practice we had a problem with the rear suspension, it was going to take too much time to fix so we had to stop earlier than planned."

"Nevertheless, we got some useful information from the car. The main task here for all the teams and drivers is to manage the different tyre compounds. As you can see, graining is the main issue, but thankfully I have my helmet and visor, which protects my eyes as the rubber is coming off!”

Chinese GP Free Practice 2 - Button set the pace

The lap times tumbled this afternoon in sunny Shanghai and there was a more familiar look to the timesheets with Jenson Button setting the pace in the Brawn Mercedes with a best lap of 1:35.679s.

As ever in the second practice session of the Grand Prix weekend, the teams opted to run the super soft tyre for the first time in anger with Button setting the pace on his second run with the option tyre. Underlining the raw pace of the BGP 001 package, Rubens Barrichello ended the day with the third fastest time, just two-tenths adrift.

Nico Rosberg split the Brawn duo with his final soft tyre run late in the session, lapping just 0.025s slower than Button in the increasingly competitive Williams Toyota. Rosberg could well have piped Button best time were it not for a small error under braking at the end of the back straight on his first timed lap with fresh rubber.

Mark Webber and Sebastian topped the timesheets for much of the 90-minute session following their first run on the option tyre but the Red Bull Renault duo were later bumped down to fourth and fifth positions, just under half a second off the ultimate pace.

It was a busy session for Jarno Trulli as he completed 42 laps, more than any other runner, looking to make up for lost time following a small electrical fault in the morning session. The Italian veteran was sixth fastest in his Toyota ahead of Kazuki Nakajima in the second Williams and team-mate Timo Glock in the second TF109.

After topping the timesheets in the morning session with Lewis Hamilton, the afternoon programme would prove a little more difficult for the under-pressure McLaren Mercedes team. Hamilton was 13th in this session and unable to extract extra pace from the option tyre despite the new aero-package at his disposal this weekend, while only a late push from Heikki Kovalainen saw him vault from 19th to ninth just ahead of the chequered flag.

Sebastian Bourdais had a solid day in his Toro Rosso Ferrari as he set the tenth best time, just 1.1 seconds off Button’s pace while Adrian Sutil was also showing well in 11th in the leading Force India Mercedes.

Ferrari are not running KERS this weekend in the hope that they can find better reliability, but today in the three hours of practice the F60 looked a real handful with Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen slithering around to 12th and 14th respectively.

Sebastien Buemi picked up the pace late in the session and recorded the 15th best time in the second Toro Rosso Ferrari ahead of Nelson Piquet in the leading Renault. Piquet spent much of the session languishing at the bottom of the timesheets but his late run at least propelled him a little way up the order.

It was the usual Friday story over at BMW Sauber with neither Robert Kubica nor Nick Heidfeld being able to coax much pace out of the disappointing F1.09 package. Kubica spent much of the day acclimatising to KERS but it was notable that even when bolting on the option tyre, the lap times simply would not come. Kubica ended the day 17th with Heidfeld 18th.

While Flavio Briatore is saying the championship is all but over already, double world champion Fernando Alonso must also be harbouring similar feelings after being just 19th ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella this afternoon. Alonso only completed 28 laps in what looks to be another tough weekend for Renault.

Dennis - McLaren will bounce back

Lewis Hamilton may not be able to win this year, but he will be able to add to his championship tally with McLaren in the future.

That is the belief of the reigning world champion's former mentor and boss Ron Dennis, who at Woking on Thursday announced his complete withdrawal from involvement in Formula One.

It has been rumoured that intractable friction between the 61-year-old and the Hamilton camp - notably Lewis' father-manager Anthony - contributed to Dennis' decision to step aside. But Dennis played down suggestions that Hamilton leaving the team before his current long-term contract expires was a possibility.

"Lewis has a contract and it's a long contract," he said.

Dennis also hinted that Hamilton cannot despair at his current situation, because two of the three McLarens he has raced in his career were capable of fighting for the championship.

"He's been very fortunate always to be in a competitive McLaren," said Dennis. "This is motor racing. Sometimes companies give you a competitive racing car, sometimes they don't."

Dennis acknowledged, however, that the current MP4-24 is unlikely to ever be a world-beater.

"People seem to be forgetting that we've got the numbers one and two on our cars," he said. "They might not be next year, but we will do everything we can to make it happen again in two years."