Free Practice 1 and 2: Hamilton Sets the Tone

Your favorite site, Motorsinside.com, reported this week on Lewis Hamilton’s dismay after his race in Australia. The real desire of the English driver to bounce back and succeed in Malaysia was also mentioned.

Today, after two free practice sessions, the young English prodigy confirmed his intention by clocking the two best times of these sessions. In the first session, he recorded a time of 1:34.921 with 19 laps completed, ahead of Nico Rosberg by 0.2 seconds. At the end of the second session, he covered 27 laps with a best time of 1:34.175, leaving the second-place Sebastian Vettel more than 0.25 seconds behind.

Hamilton managed to make progress during this second session as he equaled his best time from the first session after only 15 minutes. It took some time to see an interesting lap time set by a car equipped with “option” tires, that is to say, soft tires.

Indeed, many drivers have complained about this tire mounting that distorts the balance of the cars with a softer rubber. Lewis confirmed this over the radio:

« The “option” tires give me a bad feeling, the car is aggressive and the wheels slip. »

Later in this second session, his teammate Jenson Button (4th fastest) will test these same tires on a run, the result will be the same: instability at the rear and understeer.

A driver managed to take advantage of the soft tires, despite criticism, Sebastian Vettel secured the 2nd fastest time with these tires.

Before achieving this lap time, the young German driver thought he would face a power steering problem.

But that was not the case, as misfortune would strike the neighboring stall of Vettel, as Mark Webber (20th fastest) was forced to stop his car at turn no. 9. Red Bull suspects an engine failure.

At Mercedes GP, Nico Rosberg shows that he is present with the 3rd fastest time, ahead of Michael Schumacher who finishes with the 5th fastest time.

Ferrari has decided to use these free practice sessions to simulate stints with fuel tanks filled. It is highly likely that the Italian team wants to improve tire performance in this configuration.

The two drivers of the prancing horse team spent the majority of this session flirting with the slowest lap times.

It was only at the end of this work session that Fernando Alonso was able to sign a 7th time, while Felipe Massa had to settle for the 15th time.

Renault places both its drivers in the top 10, with Kubica posting the 6th fastest time followed by his young Russian teammate, Vitaly Petrov, who records the 9th fastest time.

For the more modest teams, it should be noted the good performance of Sébastien Buemi who achieved the 8th fastest time. Sutil and Liuzzi from Force India finished with the 10th and 12th fastest times, respectively. Interspersed in the 11th position is the Sauber of Japanese driver Kobayashi, closely followed by his teammate de la Rosa with the 13th fastest time.

Among the new teams, it is still Lotus that delivers the best performances. Trulli and Kovalainen recorded the 18th and 19th fastest times.

After 1 and a half hours of testing, there were no major incidents, but numerous off-track excursions were reported, mainly due to the use of soft tires.

Results of Free Practice 1 – Malaysian GP – Friday, April 2, 2010:

Results of Free Practice 2 – Malaysian GP – Friday, April 2, 2010: