Japanese GP. FP1 Report. McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen grabbed top spot from home hero Kazuki Nakajima in the closing seconds of a largely meaningless opening practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix, which was dogged by showery weather from the outset.It was an underwhelming start to Suzuka's triumphant return to the F1 schedule, with pre-session rain showers meaning that the track started wet and remained damp throughout. Although plenty of drivers put in a half-decent number of laps, very few of them seemed to take place at anything close to maximum commitment.
Despite the wet conditions, it only took 20 minutes for cars to start setting times, with Lewis Hamilton topping the early times set on full wet tyres, but the sight of Romain Grosjean going second fastest after half an hour raised a few eyebrows, and pointed to the fact that the intermediate tyres he was on were now coming into their own.
As the track began to dry, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton impressed with a pair of decent laps, but the times were slowly trimmed throughout the 90 minutes, finally dipping into the mid 1:40s from the 1:53s of earlier in the session.
Kazuki Nakajima cheered his home fans up by threatening to emerge with the quickest time overall as he moved ahead of Adrian Sutil on his final run, with the chequered flag already indicating the end of the timed session. But Heikki Kovalainen, looking to impress a team boss or two with his McLaren P45 on the horizon, pipped him at the last to get his weekend off to a happy start.
Nakajima had to be happy with second overall, ahead of Adrian Sutil, who impressed with his wet pace in practice again despite only completing 14 laps (though admittedly, he didn't complete any running on the track when it was at it's wettest). Giancarlo Fisichella finished fourth for Ferrari, raising his hopes that he can finally deliver a half-decent weekend for the Scuderia here at Suzuka.
Sebastien Buemi completed the odd-looking top five for Toro Rosso, having been fastest overall at one point, ahead of Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, who narrowly avoided an ignominious end to his morning when he just kept his car out of the tyre barrier having run off at the tight hairpin on his first flying run.
Kimi Raikkonen ended 8th in the second Ferrari, with title contender Rubens Barrichello and Nico Rosberg in the second Williams completing the top ten.
Mark Webber was the best of the Red Bull drivers in 11th, with Vitantonio Liuzzi 12th in his Force India. Jarno Trulli's Toyota was 13th, from Jamie Alguersuari, who was among the busiest men on track in his Toro Rosso.
Further back, the two BMW Sauber drivers ended 15th and 16th for Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld respectively, while title hopefuls Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button endured quiet sessions, finishing down in 17th and 18th.
Toyota third driver Kamui Kobayashi got a run out in front of his home crowd, deputising for TImo Glock who had come down with a strong dose of the sniffles, and the reigning GP2 Asia champion did not embarrass himself, having a competent session overall to end 19th, having outpaced his team mate Trulli for much of the 90 minutes. He even beat Romain Grosjean, who ended the session last for Renault.
Little can really be gathered from the times though because of the moist track conditions. The drivers will be hoping for some drier weather for FP2 later on today.
| FP1 Times | ||||
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time | Laps |
| 1 | Heikki Kovalainen | McLaren - Mercedes | 1:40.356 | 24 |
| 2 | Kazuki Nakajima | Williams - Toyota | 1:40.658 | 18 |
| 3 | Adrian Sutil | Force India - Mercedes | 1:40.806 | 14 |
| 4 | Giancarlo Fisichella | Ferrari | 1:40.985 | 27 |
| 5 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso - Ferrari | 1:41.421 | 26 |
| 6 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren - Mercedes | 1:41.443 | 15 |
| 7 | Fernando Alonso | Renault | 1:41.532 | 22 |
| 8 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1:41.577 | 25 |
| 9 | Rubens Barrichello | Brawn - Mercedes | 1:41.821 | 19 |
| 10 | Nico Rosberg | Williams - Toyota | 1:42.188 | 20 |
| 11 | Mark Webber | Red Bull - Renault | 1:42.332 | 10 |
| 12 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India - Mercedes | 1:42.475 | 15 |
| 13 | Jarno Trulli | Toyota | 1:42.657 | 13 |
| 14 | Jamie Alguersuari | Toro Rosso - Ferrari | 1:42.667 | 27 |
| 15 | Robert Kubica | BMW Sauber | 1:42.883 | 17 |
| 16 | Nick Heidfeld | BMW Sauber | 1:42.977 | 14 |
| 17 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull - Renault | 1:43.218 | 11 |
| 18 | Jenson Button | Brawn - Mercedes | 1:43.318 | 17 |
| 19 | Kamui Kobayashi | Toyota | 1:43.407 | 16 |
| 20 | Romain Grosjean | Renault | 1:43.572 | 22 |
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