Sepang, 2 April

The third round of the Formula 1 World Championship got underway this morning at Sepang, with the first free practice session, for the twelfth running of the event at this track. The ninety minutes of track time featured appearances from Paul di Resta, the English Force India test driver, standing in for Vitantonio Liuzzi and Malaysian test driver, Fairuz Fauzy, at the wheel of the Lotus instead of Finland’s Heikki Kovalainen. Topping the time sheet was Lewis Hamilton in 1.34.921, while McLaren team-mate Jenson Button was third (1.35.207) sandwiching the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg (1.35.106.)

First of the Ferraris was Fernando Alonso, eighth in 1.35.959, having completed 20 laps, while team-mate Felipe Massa did two more on his way to posting the eleventh fastest time in 1.36.451. Neither Ferrari man was able to find an ideal balance on the F10 and Felipe especially suffered with some additional difficulties on the front end. The team has a lot of work ahead of it this afternoon, in the second session which starts at 2pm local time, on the red hot Sepang track, which today saw air and track temperatures of 32 and 38 degrees respectively.