Thursday Practice

The tag will say Friday, but that is just for consistency's sake. Monaco being so special, "Friday" practice happened yesterday. Simple post, this, to gauge gaps between teams, it will look at total laps, fastest time and the difference between the sessions.

Session 1:
Brawn - Barrichello- 1:17.189 - 0.000 - 26+28 = 54 laps total
Ferrari - F. Massa - 1:17.499 - 0.310 - 31+30 = 61
McLaren - Hamilton - 1:17.578 - 0.389 - 26+30 = 56
Williams - Nakajima- 1:18.000 - 0.811 - 29+27 = 56
Renault - F. Alonso- 1:18.283 - 1.094 - 31+36 = 67 (Piquet ran lots of laps)
Red Bull - Webber - 1:18.348 - 1.159 - 22+16 = 38 (Vettel engine blown,no penalty)
Toro Rosso - Buemi - 1:18.695 - 1.506 - 37+31 = 68 (Buemi ran more laps than anyone else)
Force India-Fisichella-1:19.534-2.345 - 28+24 = 52
BMW - Robert Kubica- 1:19.560 - 2.371 - 20+23 = 43 (Kubica had mechanical trouble)
Toyota - Timo Glock- 1:19.698 - 2.509 - 24+28 = 52

Session 2:
Williams - Rosberg - 1:15.243 - 0.000 - 45+43 = 88
McLaren-Hamilton-1:15.445 - 0.202 - 35+45 = 80
Brawn-Barrichello- 1:15.590 - 0.347 - 41+36 = 77
Ferrari - F. Massa - 1:15.832 - 0.589 - 42+43 = 87
Red Bull - S. Vettel - 1:15.847 - 0.604 - 33+27 = 60
Renault - N. Piquet - 1:16.286 - 1.043 - 43+39 = 82
Force India-A. Sutil- 1:16.675 - 1.432 - 38+45 = 83
Toyota-Jarno Trulli- 1:16.915 - 1.672 - 43+45 = 88
Toro Rosso-Buemi- 1:16.983 - 1.740 - 48+48=96
BMW - N. Heidfeld - 1:17.109 - 1.866 - 40+2 = 42 (Kubica blew his engine early on)

You'll notice how much quicker the 2nd session was compared to the first. Saturday will be quicker still. Drivers in bold beat their teammates in both sessions. Remember, though, that Thursday is worthless in F1 (except for sponsors).

Tyres: Super-softs and softs have been brought here, as an exception to the "2 compounds apart" rule, which will reduce the need for leading teams to run on softs in Q1. This will further empower them to 2-stop, on fresh tyres throughout (2 stints on super-softs, 1 on softs, I think). Weaker teams will 1 stop and put the longer stint on the soft (harder) tyre, to avoid problems faced in some years.

Weather: looks like it will be clear and dry, which spoils the fun somewhat.