Spa-Francorchamps, 28 August 2009

After the heat and humidity of Valencia and the rather bland nature of the track, in every sense of the word, the start of today’s free practice was a breath of fresh air, as drivers set out to tackle this beautiful Spa-Francorchamps road circuit. And to reinforce the stereotypical expectations at this track, the morning session was pretty much washed out by rain with Kimi Raikkonen only completing 16 laps, four less than his Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team-mate, Luca Badoer. The afternoon was dry and both men were able to make progress with the day’s programme, Kimi completing 26 laps on his way to third fastest and Luca doing 30, ending the day in twentieth place. The Finn looks very competitive at this track where he has a triplet of wins to his name, while although Luca is again last, his times are improving and he actually looked well on the pace when the track was wet. The forecast for the rest of the weekend however, is for dry conditions.




McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton was fastest after the three hours of free practice, with Timo Glock his closest pursuer in the Toyota. Behind Kimi, Mark Webber was fourth fastest for Red Bull-Renault, with Romain Grosjean fifth for Renault in his second ever F1 weekend. Giancarlo Fisichella was a surprising sixth for Force India.