Free Practice 1: The Grand Return of Lewis Hamilton!

Lewis Hamilton set the tone for the first free practice session of the Chinese Grand Prix. It is the first time he has been the leader of an official GP session in 2009. The new aerodynamic package on the McLaren MP4-24 seems to be paying off.

Hamilton, who achieved his best time after 60 minutes of testing, is ahead of the usual leaders who benefit from their advantage with the double diffuser. Indeed, Jenson Button and his teammate Rubens Barrichello from Brawn GP finish second and third.

Even more encouraging for McLaren is that Heikki Kovalainen clocked the fourth fastest time of the morning at the Shanghai International Circuit.

As usual in 2009, the first half-hour of the session mainly saw the rookie Sébastien Buemi on track collecting data at the wheel of his Toro Rosso, but just before the half-hour mark, it was Jarno Trulli in his Toyota who was the first driver to set a fast time at 1:39.959.

The Italian immediately lowered his time by 0.69 seconds but apparently, victim of an electrical problem on his TF109, he lost his head for half an hour.

Meanwhile, Hamilton, whose car underwent several adjustments in line with the new diffuser, signaled his intentions with a lap time of 1:38.603. This was quickly beaten by the Brawn drivers, with Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello starting to string together fast laps.

But just after the practice session, the reigning world champion was even faster, and his time of 1:37.334 proved unbeatable for the rest of the session.

Fortunately for the Woking team, Kovalainen stayed in touch with the leading trio for most of the session. He was only 0.338 seconds off the absolute pace.

Mark Webber is fifth with his Red Bull ahead of Trulli who ultimately takes sixth place. The star of these 2009 free practices, Nico Rosberg did no better than a seventh time for Williams.

The second Toyota driver, Timo Glock finishes in eighth place, ahead of Fernando Alonso from Renault. Sébastien Bourdais in tenth place, coupled with Buemi’s 13th, show that Toro Rosso has made progress on their STR4.

Ferrari is still far behind as Kimi Räikkönen couldn’t do better than the 11th fastest time while his teammate Felipe Massa complained of severe graining issues and finished in 15th place behind Adrian Sutil with the first Force India. His teammate Giancarlo Fisichella is 17th. Sebastian Vettel is quite far back in 12th position.

BMW drivers do not shine with 16th and 18th places, with Nick Heidfeld ahead of Robert Kubica. Kazuki Nakajima in the Williams and Nelson Piquet in the Renault bring up the rear.

Results Free Practice 1 – Shanghai – Friday, April 17, 2009: