Webber fastest by 1.6 seconds in first practice

2011 Malaysian GP first practice

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Mark Webber, Red Bull, Sepang, 2011

Mark Webber was the fastest driver in the first practice session for the second weekend in a row.

The Red Bull driver was fastest for most of the session, before dramatically lowering his time to a 1’37.651, putting him over a second and a half faster than anyone else.

Lewis Hamilton was second fastest for McLaren with Michael Schumacher third.

A late improvement by Nico Hulkenberg put the Force India driver fourth ahead of Pastor Maldonado.

Ferrari had a quiet session and spent much of it with their drivers running at fixed speeds on the straights for aerodynamics testing. Felipe Massa ended the session sixth with Fernando Alonso ninth.

Alonso was one of several drivers to run wide at turn eight. Sergio Perez also skidded wide at the corner.

Narain Karthikeyan’s participation in the session came to an early halt as a plume of smoke erupted from the back of his HRT as he left the pits. He eventually came to a stop just after turn four.

Renault driver Nick Heidfeld also hit trouble when his front-right brake locked solid shortly after he’d set the fastest time of the session.

He had to drive the R31 back to the with only three wheels rotating for an entire lap, by the end of which a huge chunk of the tyre had worn away and sparks and smoke were coming from the underside of the car.

Team mate Vitaly Petrov also had problems, spending most of the session in the garage after his installation lap. Once he did join the track he suffered a failure on the front-left corner which sent him spinning into the gravel trap at turn nine.

Late in the session Jerome d’Ambrosio suffered a similar failure at the front-right of his car. The wheel came off entirely, sending him into the gravel trap at the final corner.

Pos.CarDriverCarBest lapGapLaps
12Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault1’37.65122
23Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1’39.3161.66516
37Michael SchumacherMercedes1’39.7912.14029
415Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’40.3772.72623
512Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Cosworth1’40.4432.79231
66Felipe MassaFerrari1’40.4532.80222
79Nick HeidfeldRenault1’40.5252.8746
811Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth1’40.5812.93021
95Fernando AlonsoFerrari1’40.6012.95023
108Nico RosbergMercedes1’40.6462.99529
1114Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes1’40.7343.08321
1218Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari1’40.7483.09723
1319Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari1’40.7703.11924
1416Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1’40.8723.22127
154Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’40.9273.27616
1621Jarno TrulliLotus-Renault1’41.6203.96921
171Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’41.6273.97618
1817Sergio PerezSauber-Ferrari1’41.6423.99124
1924Timo GlockVirgin-Cosworth1’42.1544.50318
2025Jerome d’AmbrosioVirgin-Cosworth1’42.5404.88920
2120Davide ValsecchiLotus-Renault1’44.0546.40318
2223Vitantonio LiuzziHRT-Cosworth1’45.2287.57720
2322Narain KarthikeyanHRT-Cosworth1’46.2678.61610
2410Vitaly PetrovRenault1’47.93210.2814

2011 Malaysian Grand Prix


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    Keith Collantine
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    64 comments on “Webber fastest by 1.6 seconds in first practice”

    1. The new double wheel tethers seem to be doing their job!

      1. He’s done a Buemi!

    2. Ferrari better hope that thier aerodynamic evaluation will bring them closer to red bull.

      Hope FP2 will be a more realistic representation of the true pace of the others

    3. d’Ambrosio’s failure was very similar to Raikkonen’s at the Nurburgring in 2005. I wonder if he had a flat spot, too?

      1. Seems he had a suspension failure, acc. to Will Buxton.

    4. I missed the session. Anyone know why there is such a big between Webber/Vettel and Butto/Hamilton? Were they running different programmes/tyres?

      1. I’d imagine so. Although I couldn’t tell which tyres they were all running with my low quality video feed because of the silly colouring system they have this year. :(

    5. anto the irish
      8th April 2011, 4:44

      vetel doing a full fuel setup run on a friday?

      1. actually, he didn’t run many laps.

    6. I hope this is not true pace.

      1. It’s not. Everyone is running their own programs at the moment. True pace won’t be seen until FP3, as always.

        1. I know it. but there’s always some order. I wish Redbull is not 1.5s faster than the best of the rest.

          1. But it’s only FP1. You can’t read too much into the times because the times don’t mean anything.

            1. I’m just being worried.

            2. Well, you have no reason to be.

      2. I hope it is ;)

        1. One good thing of this time sheet is that Vettel is not good :P

          1. that will be purely because he wasn’t going for lap times, wait until FP3 or qualy and he will be back at the top

    7. I know it goes largely unnoticed, but as an Aussie I follow Ricciardo’s times closely – and so far, both times he’s been given the car he’s been pretty impressive, both against his STR teammates and the rest of the field. I know that FP1 means next to nothing in the long run, but it’s still good to see. Here’s hoping an F1 seat becomes available to him in the not too distant future, another Aussie to continue flying the flag in the sport!

      1. Agree. I think we’ll see him in the race car later in the season at this rate.

      2. I agree Ricciardo has never put a foot wrong with his f1 car efforts.

      3. Yup, another jewel of Redbull young driver programm.

      4. Ugh, I’m sick of hearing about Ricciardo. Call me when he actually does something impressive.

        1. OK Mr Monkey.

        2. I think people are sick of you bagging Ricciardo. If you don’t like the comments then just skip over them. Relax.

          1. It’s not the comments, it’s the hype. I swear, some people would get excited over a shot of Ricciardo sitting in a chair.

        3. What’s not impressive about posting FP times that match the STR drivers? I wasn’t aware of any hype either, I’m just going by what I see, thankyou.

          I’m glad I don’t share your pessimistic view of all things Australian…

        4. I’m not part of the Ricciardo hype, but still I think you’ll be eating those words not too long from now, PM.

      5. I think Ricciardo is doing all he can. As long as he keeps up the pressure and puts in as much effort as he can I have no doubt he will have a seat by the end of the year. Probably get to race one or two at the end.

    8. Vettel looked a bit concerned getting out of his car maybe this is webbers race…

      1. Maybe he was in Webbers car? :)

      2. Maybe you’ll win the lottery.

      3. Big thing is that Webber only did a few more laps than Vettel. I thought maybe he was holding back though. Just waiting to try and get two fast ones in at the end. I think Vettel has more to show. The yellow near the end (2nd last min) might have just ruined his rhythm though.

        1. Webber has often been very very good at Sepang. It wouldn’t surprise me if he has an edge over Seb this weekend.

    9. I think Webber is anxious to show it was the car and not the driver in Melbourne.

    10. jsw11984 (@jarred-walmsley)
      8th April 2011, 5:08

      Looks like Luizzi was right about qualifying as the two HRT’s are well within the 107% rule with the slowest of the two drivers Karthikeyan doing 1’46.267 with Webber doing the 1’37.651, which would make the 107% time 1’47.287 so the only driver not in the time is Petrov due to his crash. And the deal with Mercedes for the wind tunnel use should ensure the HRT stays in there.

      1. But the top teams should do 1:35s easily in Q1. That would mean that 107% is around 1:41. Can’t see HRT finding that much time.

      2. I think that you may need to check your math–it looks like you didn’t covert the lap time to seconds before multiplying.

        If you are using Webber’s fastest lap of 1’37.651 to calculate par, then the 107% time would be 1’44.487. Both HRTs would be the only ones out again. Also, it’s quite likely that Renault would get a free pass from the FIA to race, as their other car held a time well within the 107% margin.

        1. jsw11984 (@jarred-walmsley)
          8th April 2011, 9:06

          Ah, yes you’re right, I forgot to convert to seconds, my bad

      3. Argent’s 107% time is correct (1.07*97.651=104.487) and both HRTs would be outside of it. Virgin looking surprisingly comfortable though.

        1. I meant Jarred’s time :)

      4. Jelle van der Meer (@)
        8th April 2011, 5:34

        The 107% time is 1’44.487 so based on that both HRT and Petrov are outside that limit.

        Based on last year’s fastest time of 1’33.542 (FP3 as rainy qualifying) the 107% time would be 1’40.090 which would mean all but top 3 would not qualify based on FP1 times

        Also to mention that last year best time in FP1 was 1’34.921 by Lewis so Webber is still a good 2.7 seconds away from that.

      5. SeattleChris
        8th April 2011, 5:35

        The RBR’s are going to drop many seconds come qualifying. I doubt they will legally make it in this race, but I’ll bet the stewards will allow them in because they’ve missed one race already and its not good for the sport if the rules keep a team out of every race.

        1. Jelle van der Meer (@)
          8th April 2011, 5:42

          Here comes the interesting question – on narrower circuits like Monaco will Red Bull put in a very quick Q1 lap to try to disqualify the slower teams or not.

          Is it an advantage or disadvantage for the fastest team(s) to have the slower teams outside the 107% margin.

          Today’s 107% margin is less though as it used to be as today it is calculated on Q1 times while previous it was based on pole time.

          1. That’s indeed quite interesting. But then the question comes of who would “take one for the team” and do a Q3-like run in Q1 in order to put the 107% margin as high as possible.

    11. Vettel was testing Kers for sure, but did Webber had Kers on his car? Anyone knows?

    12. Go Massa!

    13. I hoped HRT would have done longer runs. As things stand, they will need to find another 5 – 6 seconds to feel safe.

    14. Are you sure you are doing your maths right? At 1:40.00 dead, 107% is 1:47.00. So they are are well out of it since webber did a 1:37.65.

    15. Did anybody use Pirelli’s experimental tyres this session? Would that explain some of the “discrepancies” in the times set?

      Also, it’s nice to see Trulli doing better than just the Virgin and HRT cars.

      1. Yes they were being used quite a lot from what I saw.

    16. Jelle van der Meer (@)
      8th April 2011, 5:27

      Looking at the actual sector times and ultimate lap (best sector times together) Vettel is ranked 4th after Webber, Lewis and Michael. Webber in 1.37 and other 3 in 1.39 the rest of the field is 1.40 or higher

      Webber is fasted on all sectors but sector 2 he really dominates with closest rival Vettel being 0.6 seconds off and nearest non Red Bull 0.8 seconds.

      Vettel only bad sector is sector 3

    17. SeattleChris
      8th April 2011, 5:40

      Oh, BTW… how many Europeans were on speedtv watching the practice online? I’ll bet a lot were. I just want to point it out for all those silly nanny’s who were complaining about American’s “stealing” their bandwidth and hard earned money. For the record, it costs Americans money too, but we’re not complaining about it. I truly hope you enjoyed the sounds and the practice. Its ridiculous to have those with terrible perspectives commenting that only they should get to see a sport we all enjoy. Besides, someone over on your side of the pond is airing it… who wouldn’t watch what they want if they can?

      1. What on earth are you going on about buddy?? Lots of European sites stream practice live too, did you really think only speed tv broadcasts it??? Lol…..get off your soapbox Captain America hahaha.

        1. SeattleChris
          9th April 2011, 3:17

          Regardless, the point is just that it was available for the world – I’m certainly not on any soapbox, and I believe if you actually read what I posted it is in fact obvious that I was “going on about” others who previously soapboxed about this topic.

          Just pent up feelings towards those who wouldn’t share if given the choice I guess. Sorry to put you off mate.

      1. Wow. That must have scared the cr$p out of Petrov.

    18. Not sure how you can bag Ricciardo ‘Prisoner Monkeys’ or whatever your name is (not sure who would call themselves that but anyway). You obviously do not follow his times and efforts close enough to realise what a talent he actually is but you attire yourself as this big F1 fan, getting into the grime of the discussion and now you are just putting him down because you don’t ‘like’ him – come on mate grow up, you are making everyone sick to death of your useless input and low base level of knowledge on the matters at hand.

      1. Relax. Don’t be that harsh, if he doesn’t like him so he doesn’t like him, its his opinion.
        Every opinion demands some respect.

    19. Sounds like really scary stuff for Heidfeld :(

      Sounds about right for HRT.

    20. Don’t know what’s going on but i can’t see the article about practice 2. I always get redirected here.

    21. There seems to be an error in the mobile version that redirects me to this page instead after clicking the FP2 link

      1. And it’s not just the mobile version.

        1. Looks like a cache glitch – have cleared it now, seems OK.

    Comments are closed.