Vettlu's first free practice

 

The current world champion, Sebastian Vettel, was the fastest with a time of 1: 27.211 in Friday’s first free practice before the Australian Grand Prix. He set the time on medium-hard tires, and was closest to him by Ferrari racer Felipe Massa, who was just 0.078 seconds behind. Third was Fernando Alonso in a second Ferrari.

Temperatures were much higher than those tested in Barcelona and Jerez, but it was almost half an hour before any of the racers took the plunge and set the time. The first was Jean-Eric Vergne, and the better racers drove their laps almost forty minutes after the start of training, having previously waited for the track to clear.

We also saw some minor excursions from the track, but the most frightened was Paul di Resta, who drove a little too wide before the fifth turn, touched the grass, causing his Force Indio to spin into the sand.

 

	Racer	The team	Hour	Circles
1.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	01:27.211	16
2.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	01:27.289	17
3.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	01:27.547	16
4.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	01:27.552	18
5.	Mark Webber	Red Bull	01:27.668	18
6.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus	01:27.877	17
7.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	01:28.013	17
8.	Adrian Sutil	Force India	01:28.426	19
9.	Jenson Button	McLaren	01:28.440	19
10.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	01:28.520	15
11.	Sergio Perez	McLaren	01:28.597	19
12.	Nico Hulkenberg	Clean	01:28.786	19
13.	Paul di Resta	Force India	01:28.910	18
14.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	01:29.443	20
15.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	01:29.928	19
16.	Esteban Gutierrez	Clean	01:30.203	17
17.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	01:30.729	17
18.	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	01:30.969	19
19.	Jules Bianchi	Marussia	01:31.263	24
20.	Max Chilton	Marussia	01:32.176	23
21.	Charles Pic	Caterham	01:32.274	21
22.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham	01:32.388	18