Turkish Grand Prix: Friday Practice One

In Friday's first practice session Ferrari proved that they definitely have the pace at the Istanbul circuit, but question marks remain over their reliability. Felipe Massa finished first on the grid ahead of the McLarens of Kovalainen and Hamilton, but Kimi Raikkonen finished dead last after a gearbox problem meant he couldn't do any serious running. Ferrari are confident that the gearbox will not have to be replaced and that they will not incur any penalty, but it's still not a great start for the WDC leader.

Times throughout the midfield seemed to be a lot more spread out than they have been in the past couple of races. Where at Barcelona a couple of tenths separated the midfield teams, here there is more like a couple of seconds separating them. This is quite a long, high speed circuit, and any weaknesses in straight line speed will be really exposed here.

Renault again looked strong with Fernando Alonso fourth fastest. BMW didn't have the best of sessions with Heidfeld in seventh and Kubica way down the field after suffering from rear suspension trouble. The Hondas looked strong by taking fifth and eighth place. The teams from the Red Bull stable seemed to struggle the most with none of their four cars breaking the 1:30 barrier. They all finished roughly 3 seconds off the pace of Massa's Ferrari.

Practice One Times

01 F. Massa Ferrari 1:27.323 16 laps
02 H. Kovalainen McLaren 1:27.456 17 laps
03 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:27.752 15 laps
04 F. Alonso Renault 1:28.284 16 laps
05 J. Button Honda 1:28.919 12 laps
06 K. Nakajima Williams 1:29.002 19 laps
07 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:29.024 21 laps
08 R. Barrichello Honda 1:29.068 11 laps
09 N. Piquet jr. Renault 1:29.082 23 laps
10 T. Glock Toyota 1:29.103 19 laps
11 J. Trulli Toyota 1:29.329 24 laps
12 R. Kubica BMW 1:29.330 7 laps
13 N. Rosberg Williams 1:29.367 20 laps
14 A. Sutil Force India F1 1:29.756 23 laps
15 G. Fisichella Force India F1 1:29.811 23 laps
16 M. Webber Red Bull 1:30.088 21 laps
17 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:30.340 13 laps
18 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:30.388 19 laps
19 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:30.426 21 laps
20 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:30.732 3 laps