McLaren one-two in opening practice

Practice for the Turkish GP got off to a slow start as none of the teams was too keen to do some track-cleaning. Some of them undertook lengthy installation runs, testing some of the updates they have brought to Istanbul.

HRT’s test and reserve driver Sakon Yamamoto was the first to post a time on the board with just over an hour remaining. Ten minutes later, the Japanese had been demoted to fourth place by Jaime Alguersuari in the Toro Rosso and both Lotus of Kovalainen and Trulli.

Karun Chandhok then brought the yellow flags out, lapping extremely slowly around the track. He nonetheless managed to make it back to the pits so that the team could investigate the problem.

The leading drivers reappeared on track with 45 minutes remaining and Sebastian Vettel immediately put his Red Bull on top with a 1’30’’471 fastest time. As lap times quickly improved, the Red Bull driver was soon relegated to fifth. Jenson Button took the lead ahead of his McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton and Renault’s Vitaly Petrov.

With 30 minutes to go, Lewis Hamilton was the new pacesetter with a 1’28’’653 fastest time. He was 0.962s quicker than Jenson Button and 1.2s quicker than Schumacher and Vettel.

There was no major improvement in the final part of the session and Hamilton remained on top. Button was 2nd quickest with Schumacher and Rosberg third and fourth. Running Red Bull’s F-duct for the first time this morning, Sebastian Vettel set the fifth fastest time.

Kubica, Petrov, Webber, Alonso and Sutil completed the top ten. The German crashed his Force India at Turn 8 with just a couple of minutes remaining. He travelled across the run-off area before hitting the tyre barrier and caused consequent damage to the front-end of his car.