Free Practice 1 – Hamilton Wakes Up First

Lewis Hamilton with McLaren set the fastest time in the first free practice session of the Japanese Grand Prix.

Under a sunny sky and near Mount Fuji, Hamilton beat his main title rival Felipe Massa (Ferrari) by 0.153 seconds. Their respective teammates Heikki Kovalainen and Kimi Räikkönen finished third and fourth.

The session began calmly with a Toyota team, alone on the track, there to entertain the fans.

Räikkönen was the first driver from the top of the standings to emerge, setting a decent time and then beating it half an hour later.

The Finn briefly lost the leading position for a lap to Hamilton before the Briton lost time at turn 1, allowing the reigning world champion to remain at the top of the hierarchy.

Hamilton woke up 20 minutes later, with a time of 1:19.062, erasing Räikkönen’s record by three-tenths of a second.

Massa slots into second place, just 0.001 seconds behind Hamilton. The latter then shifts into a higher gear to go below the 1 minute 19 mark with 1:18.910. It will be the best time of the morning.

Kovalainen improves his sector times to position himself in third place while Räikkönen slips to fourth.

Fernando Alonso (Renault) was, throughout the morning, the main challenger to the McLaren and Ferrari drivers and finished fifth, ahead of his teammate Nelson Piquet.

Toro Rosso is still well positioned with Sebastian Vettel ahead of Sébastien Bourdais, both in the top 10 with the seventh and ninth fastest times respectively, separated by Robert Kubica in the BMW.

The only Japanese representative, Kazuki Nakajima, delighted his fans as he jumped to 10th place for Williams at the last moment.

His climb penalizes Adrian Sutil for Force India, who falls to 11th place. The German is comfortable on this track since it was here that he succeeded in scoring his only career point. It was a year ago.

Toyota disappoints in this first test session with a lack of pace from the drivers. Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock are in 15th and 18th place, respectively.

The session saw a few minor incidents such as off-track excursions. Heidfeld made a half spin at turn 10. The German is 14th behind Rosberg and Webber.

Free Practice 1 Results – Japanese GP – Friday, October 10, 2008