Friday Practice Review

Button won the first session, Rosberg the second. Highlights can be found on the BBC (first session, second session). The BBC describe the major headlines here.

Below is a list, by team, of the fastest drivers in each session, and then overall (almost mirrors 2nd session). Please forgive the poor formatting, one day I'll learn html.

Practice 1 .. Gap .. Practice 2 .. Gap .. Overall .. Gap
.. Brawn .. 0.000 .. Williams .. 0.000 . Williams .. 0.000
.. Toyota .. 0.355 .. Renault .. 0.193 ... Renault .. 0.193
... BMW ... 0.422 ... Brawn ... 0.255 ... *Brawn* .. *0.209*
. Williams . 0.860 . Red Bull .. 0.439 .. Red Bull .. 0.439
.. Renault . 0.954 Toro Rosso 0.983 .. *Toyota* *0.564*
.. Ferrari .. 1.056 ... Ferrari ... 1.011 ... *BMW* .. *0.631*
.. Red Bull . 1.135 Force India 1.082 . Toro Rosso 0.983
.. McLaren . 1.278 . McLaren . 1.221 .. Ferrari .. 1.011
. Toro Rosso 1.289 ... BMW ... 1.360 . Force India 1.082
. Force India 1.290 .. Toyota .. 1.772 .. McLaren . 1.221

The less obvious headlines are that Toyota and BMW are in better shape than they appear, because they did their only fast times in the first session, when conditions were slower (less rubber on the track, mainly). Secondly, the gap across the field is miniscule, with 1.221s between the fastest McLaren and the fastest car.

Button's first session time was slightly quicker than Barrichello's 2nd session one, but it doesn't affect their 3rd ranking. Alonso's fastest lap should be taken with all the usual salt (as should those of Williams, as always) for this is Spain, and he is Fernando.

Having said that, not everyone will have done a low fuel, soft tyre lap at all (and those that did might not have run on Q2 levels, but instead with, say, 10 laps' worth on board).

Trouble did strike Adrian Sutil, who failed to complete a lap in the 2nd session, having come last in the first. His fastest lap was 1.737s slower than Button's in the first session, so hopefully he'll pick time up tomorrow morning, otherwise he'll fail again, to get through to Q2.

Final note - this race we have the harder tyres (soft and hard, rather than super-soft and medium) and it appears that the soft is better, even on longer runs, so that will affect Sunday strategy.