Formula 1 Indian Grand Prix Day 1 (Friday) Report

Practice 1 : Hamilton fastest but gets penalised

The first ever practice session for the F1 cars at the new Buddh International circuit took place at 10:00 (IST) and the new track was declared slippery due to dust and a wet patch on the main straight. Indian driver Karun Chandhok was the first to come to track as he was given one off drive to drive only in this practice session as the team decided to go ahead with their experienced drivers for the race. With just few cars out on the track the session was red flagged due to a stray dog the came into the track with Karun just on his third lap. The session restarted after 10mins with Narain Karthikeyan coming to the track stayed at the top of the time sheets for a while before others could gasp on the HRT driver who is driving in his inaugural home grand prix. Then it was Schumacher who mastered the track quickly to reach the top of the timing sheets. Alonso looked good too but his Ferrari engine blew so he had to retire. Vettel and Hamilton came in late but were quick to trade in faster times. Vettel had an excursion to the grass as the track was lacking grip and was soon back to speed. But it was Lewis Hamilton who gave the best time on this new circuit at the closing stages. Alguesuari's crash and Maldonado's crash were the too major incidents in the first practice most drivers going off track due to the lack of grip on the circuit.

Later the stewards decided to penalize Hamilton and Perez with a 3 place grid penalty for ignoring the yellow flag on his final lap during Maldonado's incident.

Practice 2 : Massa tops his Ferrari

The second practice session started at 14:00hrs (IST) with the track gaining lots of rubber laid in by cars from the previous session and support race sessions, the times were expected to be faster than the previous session. The initial pace was set by Vettel but on the latter stages the Ferrari of Massa came in to speed with team mate Alonso recovering from the engine failure in FP1. Schumacher had to rectify some problems with his car in the garage. Lewis looked a little out of pace in this session compared to the previous one. Jerome Ambrosio spun and banged the wall for which the session was red flagged a while.

The closing stages were very tight with Vettel and Massa but Massa clocked the fastest at the close of the session. Hamilton went in early to the pits to start the works for the next day.