Posted by There are great expectations of the young Sebastian Vettel as the first German driver since Schumacher to have any real prospect of a win at the German grand prix. But somehow, as for Button three weeks ago at the British grand prix, things didn’t go quite according to plan in first practice…
Don't look so glum Mark, you're the fastest in Practice 1!
It was a slow start in practice today, with a largely empty track for the first half an hour due to a ‘greasy’ track. It’s worth remembering that last year’s race was held at Hockenheim, so there’s an added hurdle for the teams and drivers. As this is only Vettel’s 2nd season, he won’t have raced in an F1 car at the Nurburgring track.
About half an hour before practice finished Vettel’s car stopped with an electrical problem, but it was fixed quickly and he came back out. Unfortunately he couldn’t get the tyres up to temperature, so is down in 8th on the lap times board. He also would have wanted to get as many laps in as possible given his limited knowledge of the circuit.
For once it wasn’t practice-specialist Rosberg on top in the first session… it’s Webber who tops the times this morning, perhaps also screaming “don’t underestimate me!” loudly over the radio. The even better news for Webber fans is that he could have gone even faster if he wasn’t blocked a little on his lap. And check out Force India! Everyone loves an underdog story, and it’s looking hopeful for the perennially at-the-back team this weekend in Germany. Fisichella put in the 5th quickest lap! Shocker. Please ignore team-mate Sutil’s 20th place. He had a suspected hydraulic problem, but before that he was 3rd quickest on the board so don’t be fooled.
It’s hard to read Ferrari’s performance. Massa had a new chassis and nose cone copied off the Red Bull, and finished 3rd quickest in this session. Raikkonen, without the same upgrades, was notably slower in 6th place. Ferrari typically put their drivers on similar fuel loads for practice, but they both could be light on fuel for this session. They’ve made some pretty daft strategic choices this season so far, barring Massa’s stellar climb of the field at Silverstone, so as long as they don’t mess it up again this may be Ferrari’s weekend to shine.
What about the Brawns? Rubens looked a bit scrappy, and struggled to control the car. The team had problems getting their tyres up to speed in the cold Silverstone weather, so they may have similar issues here at the Nurburgring. Button was 2nd quickest, but was still 4 tenths of a second off the pace of 1st place man Mark Webber. We forgot to mention Lewis. Well the less said the better really. He was incredibly slow during practice, and was eventually told to turn off KERS as it was broken, and then he finished up 13th which isn’t exactly a lucky sign. And don’t forget to watch out for Williams who were 7th and 9th quickest in this first session, not bad.
The next practice starts at 5 minutes to 1pm! If you’re at work at the moment you can stream it live from the BBC website during your lunch break. Perfect.
