Friday Practice Report
Nico Rosberg kicked off the 2009 season in fine form at
Melbourne today. The German driver was fastest in both
sessions with team mate Kazuki Nakajima 2nd in P1 and 7th
in P2 to the delight of the Williams team. The Brawn GP
cars of Barrichello and Button also performed well,
underwriting their fine form in pre season testing, ending
the final session in 2nd and 5th places respectively.
Rumour has it that tomorrow will see Virgin announced as a
team sponsor. Toyota drivers Trulli and Glock also shone in
Oz ending the final session 3rd and 6th fastest. Mark
Webber completed the top 6 mix by setting 4th fastest time
in the Red Bull. Elsewhere the problems abounded with
notably McLaren and BMW struggling badly, and Ferrari not
faring much better. Hamilton and Kovalainen ended the final
session 18th and 17th, Heidfeld and Kubica 14th and 15th
and Massa and Raikkonen 10th and 11th. The drivers looked
to be struggling to handle the new cars with lots of minor
off track excursions but no hard contact. Vettel had a
fraught day with hydraulic woes in session one and spinning
out after 1 hour in session 2. Another factor affecting the
handling today was the low track temperatures resulting
from the sessions being run later in the day than normal,
this is also likely to impact qualifying and the race to
some extent. Join us again tomorrow for Practice 3 and
Qualifying.
