ING AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX 2009
27-29th March, 2009
FRIDAY FREE PRACTICE, 27TH MARCH 2009
rosberg dominates the proceedings
Melbourne: The Williams team lead by German Nico Rosberg, dominated the sessions in friday free practice, thus re-inforcing the pre-season buzz that 2009 will be the most evenly fought and fiercely contested season in a long time. The Ferrari and McLaren monopoly/rivalry seems to be a thing of past and a lot of the mid-field teams from 2008 seem to be within shouting distance of wins in the current season.
Williams, Toyota and newcomers Brawn racing have shown consistent and dominant performances in the free-practice sessions, ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. Interestingly, these teams are racing under appeal challenging the accusations by rival teams, who claim that the rear diffusers used in these cars to create additional down force, are too large and violate the new aerodynamics rules.
Nico Rosberg in Williams was the quickest driver in both sessions on Friday, recoding a best lap time of 1:26.053 in the second session. The brand new Brawn team had reasons to cheer with Rubens Barrichello clocking the second fastest lap with 1:26.157 ahead of Jarno Trulli in Toyota who came in third fastest at 1:26.350.
Home hero Mark Webber, after reliabliity issues in the first session, brought in his red bull in fourth position ahead of Jenson Button in Brawn Racing. Timo Glock in Toyota, Kazuki Nakajima in Williams, Sebastian Vettel in Red Bull and Adrian Sutil in Force India came in sixth to ninth positions respectively.
It was a bad outing for Ferrari with both the cars falling way behind last year’s mid-field runners. The best of the Ferraris was that of Felipe Massa which came in 10th after clocking a fastest lap of 1:27.1 ahead of team mate and 2007 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen who came in 11th.
Double World Champion Fernando Alonso came in 12th in his Renault and the Italian outfit seems to be struggling. However the biggest disappointment of the lot came from McLaren and reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton. Heikki Kovalainen out-performed his star team mate coming in at a low-placed 17th. A struggling Lewis Hamilton could manage only 18th in the second practice session. Even the Force India of Giancarlo Fisichella seems to do better than McLaren coming in at 13th.
With the Friday practice sessions done, there’s a brief indication that it will no longer be a two-team battle and season 2009 promises to throw plenty of surprises and shocks as the season progresses.
1. Nico Rosberg Germany Williams-Toyota 1m 26.053s
2. Rubens Barrichello Brazil Brawn-Mercedes 1m 26.157s
3. Jarno Trulli Italy Toyota-Toyota 1m 26.350s
4. Mark Webber Australia Red Bull-Renault 1m 26.370s
5. Jenson Button Britain Brawn-Mercedes 1m 26.374s
6. Timo Glock Germany Toyota-Toyota 1m 26.443s
7. Kazuki Nakajima Japan Williams-Toyota 1m 26.560s
8. Sebastian Vettel Germany Red Bull-Renault 1m 26.740s
9. Adrian Sutil Germany Force India-Mercedes 1m 27.040s
10. Felipe Massa Brazil Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 27.064s
11. Kimi Raikkonen Finland Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 27.204s
12. Fernando Alonso Spain Renault-Renault 1m 27.232s
13. Giancarlo Fisichella Italy Force India-Mercedes 1m 27.282s
14. Nick Heidfeld Germany BMW Sauber 1m 27.317s
15. Robert Kubica Poland BMW Sauber 1m 27.398s
16. Sebastien Bourdais France Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 27.479s
17. Heikki Kovalainen Finland McLaren-Mercedes 1m 27.802s
18. Lewis Hamilton Britain McLaren-Mercedes 1m 27.813s
19. Nelson Piquet Jr Brazil Renault-Renault 1m 27.828s
20. Sebastien Buemi Switzerland Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 28.076s
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