Vettel pips Massa in first practice session
2013 Australian Grand Prix first practice
Sebastian Vettel began his championship defence by leading the first practice session of 2013 – but Ferrari weren’t far behind.
After the first 90 minutes of practice for the Australian Grand Prix Felipe Massa was just 0.078s slower than the Red Bull driver, with team mate Fernando Alonso third.
Lewis Hamilton was fourth fastest on his first appearance for Mercedes.
The first half-hour of the session saw little running as the drivers preferred to keep an eye on track conditions and wait for their rivals to make a move. Toro Rosso blinked first, sending Daniel Ricciardo out for a run. His team mate soon joined him followed by the Caterhams and Marussias.
Kimi Raikkonen was among the first of the front-runners to do a stint, lowering the best to a 1’27.877.
The Mercedes pair got close to the time but Fernando Alonso was the first to beat it, improving on the Lotus’s mark by two tenths of a second.
That left Vettel as the only driver yet to set a time. With half an hour to go he duly took the top spot off the Ferrari, despite running wide at turn six.
Felipe Massa briefly reclaimed the top time but Vettel took it back with his next effort. Now it was Massa’s turn to make an error at turn four, after which he made no further gains.
In the latter stages of the session several drivers were clearly struggling for grip. Mark Webber reported his tyres were gone towards the end of the session and Ricciardo was having trouble with tyre vibrations.
Giedo van der Garde ran wide at turn one and more than one driver got onto the dirt at the exit of turn five. Jules Bianchi out-braked himself at turn three.
With two minutes to go Paul di Resta spun off at turn six but managed to extract his Force India from the gravel trap and get back on the track.
2013 Australian Grand Prix
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Image © Red Bull/Getty
Abdurahman (@abdurahman) said on 15th March 2013, 4:01
What was the weather like?
Shreyas Mohanty (@shreyasf1fan) said on 15th March 2013, 4:10
29 C track temperature, and some morning sun, 5 m/s wind.
smokinjoe (@smokinjoe) said on 15th March 2013, 4:21
I have heard that there is 20% chance of rain on the raceday
Jonny C (@loomx92) said on 15th March 2013, 11:40
I’m sure sky said it was 60% for Quali and Race. May be mistaken about the race though. Should make it interesting though :)
panache (@panache) said on 15th March 2013, 4:22
First off I’d just like to say a massive “THANK YOU” to Keith and all contributors on this site for all your efforts in delivering inimitable coverage, discussion and debate in the off season.
It’s somewhat ominous for the season ahead that Vettel has posted the fastest time in the first practice session of the year after Red Bull were conspicuously underwhelming in testing. Nonetheless I’m excited about the competitiveness of the field this year in terms of ultimate pace, which at first glance appears to be an even closer affair than last year.
I can’t remember the last time I saw drivers being so aggressive out on track in the first free practice session of the year. Did anyone else make this observation? Hamilton, Rosberg, Perez and Button all seemed particularly bullish out on track, perhaps with an incentive to lay down an early benchmark for their new stablemates.
The biggest source of interest for me this year will probably be the teammate battles between Hamilton/Rosberg and Button/Perez. Even though it’s only the first practice session of the year, I’m sure it comes as no surprise to most that Hamilton and Button both set faster laps than their teammates.
I expect Hamilton and Button to both dispose of their respective teammates in highly convincing fashion this year. If neither achieves this I’ll have to completely reconsider my opinions of drivers throughout the grid. This is because I believe that the drivers who are accustomed to delivering results in the most competitive and high pressure environment at the front of the grid are a class above the rest at the moment. This list naturally includes the five world champions but also Webber and Massa.
Williams are an enigma at the moment but also the “dark horse” for this season in my opinion. I strongly suspect that their car has race winning potential this year although I don’t have even a shred of evidence to support this claim.
Bianchi impressed me during his first outing for Marussia early on in the session. He was straight onto the pace of Ricciardo and Vergne, even splitting them at one point on the timing boards and he was clearly testing the limits out on track. Chilton’s first outing was the antithesis of Bianchi’s although I suspect he will come good in time and will almost certainly be far more consistent than Bianchi over the course of the season. The question remains; can Chilton’s cool head win out over Bianchi’s ruthless pace and aggression?
M30 said on 15th March 2013, 4:42
RedBull Domination again…. how shocking..
Fisha695 (@fisha695) said on 15th March 2013, 5:02
Noticed they ditched the Red on the 1st driver T-Bar… See they can save money in F1 just think of the $250 the series will save not having to buy a roll of the Red vinyl haha.
James (@jaymz) said on 15th March 2013, 5:45
Guys this is basically another testing session, don’t read too much into it, you just make yourself look stupid.
Remember there is a race to come, even the fastest car might not win it.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner) said on 15th March 2013, 7:01
Crazy how many of you are making assumptions already…
New guys seem to perform relative to their team mates do that’s reassuring.