Sepang, 2 April

Even though it has been dry for both of today’s free practice sessions, rain, very heavy rain, has been the main topic of conversation. Because every day here in tropical Malaysia a storm has arrived with the punctuality of an alarm clock at a time that could coincide with part of tomorrow’s qualifying and Sunday’s race, even though the race time has been brought forward one hour compared to last year.



Over the three hours, Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro had only one thought in mind: preparation for Sunday’s race, which is possibly not how the other top teams tackled the two sessions. Therefore, as both our drives pointed out, the time sheet is purely a record of every driver’s quickest lap time, rather than a reference for what might be the current status among the teams. At the end of the day, Fernando Alonso was seventh fastest, while Felipe Massa was fifteenth. Over the course of the day, the Spaniard completed 54 laps, 2 less than a race distance and the Brazilian did 52. As usual, getting the F10 set-up to suit the track – very different to the first two on the calendar – and comparing the two types of tyre, over a single lap for qualifying and over a long run for race preparation, were the main items on the worksheet.

Fastest was Lewis Hamilton for McLaren, ahead of Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull. Nico Rosberg was third for Mercedes, with Melbourne winner and reigning world champion, Jenson Button was fourth in the other McLaren. Michael Schumacher, a three times winner here for Ferrari, was fifth, with the Renault of Robert Kubica rounding off the top six.

After a “normal” timetable today, we switch to a delayed schedule for the next two days, with Free Practice 3 starting at 13h00 and what could be a lottery-like qualifying at 16h00.