Patronise F1

Brazilian GP. FP1 Report. Red Bull took first blood in the decisive Brazilian GP weekend, but it was Aussie driver Mark Webber who set the pace in the first Friday practice session, rather than his title-chasing team mate. The session, though, was blighted with some poor weather.

Webber set a string of quick laps at the end of the 90 minute session to secure the top spot by over 4 tenths of a second, after a mis-session rain shower had disrupted the early preparations of the F1 brigade. The championship contenders also started their respective weekends strongly, as the championship fight heats up.

Rubens Barrichello ended second quickest for Brawn GP, despite a mid-session spin on the slippery track, to start his weekend off in a positive way. He was just ahead of Sebastian Vettel in the second Red Bull, who is also targetting a win-or-bust weekend along with the Brazilian as they try to chase down Jenson Button.

Button himself also looked to be closer to the ultimate pace than he has been lately, but he finished the practice run down in 7th place, though only two tenths of a second behind his title rivals.

McLaren continued to look strong, with Heikki Kovalainen securing 4th place behind Vettel and Lewis Hamilton taking 5th place in the second silver car. Kazuki Nakajima also had a strong session from Williams in 6th place, one spot ahead of Button. Nico Rosberg's Williams, Adrian Sutil's Force India and Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari completed the top ten.

Further back, Jarno Trulli made a late quick run to go 11th, having languished at the bottom of the times for much of the session. Nick Heidfeld was 12th for BMW Sauber, ahead of Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso. Robert Kubica was 14th in the second Beemer, with Giancarlo Fisichella 15th at the start of his penultimate weekend with Ferrari.

Fernando Alonso could only manage 16th, ahead of Tonio Liuzzi's Force India and newbie Kamui Kobayashi, who finished 18th in his second Friday practice outing for Toyota, his first as part of a full GP weekend.

Jamie Alguersuari finished 19th ahead of a struggling Romain Grosjean, who had a number of incidents during the session and caused a temporary red flag after an hour when he ran off the road and destroyed a polystyrene corner marker. Grosjean's slowpoke Renault completed the order in this first session.

The session was largely free from incident, save for Grosjean’s red flag, though Buemi had a barrier-knocking off in the closing stages in his Toro Rosso and eventual session-topper Webber nearly tripped over a tardy Nakajima during a congested period on track preceding the rain shower.

In the end, though, Webber took the first bragging rights, but both championship outsiders have started the weekend where they need to stay, comfortably ahead of Jenson Button.