Friday Practice One: a Very Wet Spa

Kamui Kobayashi led the way in Friday’s first practice session for the Belgian Grand Prix. The F1 summer break may have been over, but the track was quiet for much of the 90 minutes due to heavy rain. While most drivers stayed in the pit lane, all avoided accidents as the Sauber led the way from Pastor Maldonado and Daniel Ricciardo.

Kamui Kobayashi,Sauber Ferrari

Formula 1 fans traveled to Spa in the hope of being the first to see 24 cars in action for the first time in five weeks. Unfortunately, umbrellas and plastic bags for shelter made more of an appearance as Mother Nature lashed the track. This was of particular frustration to Valtteri Bottas and Dani Clos, reserve drivers for Williams and HRT whose weekend track time is already limited, and Lotus who are eager to test their Double DRS concept ahead of its race debut on Sunday.

While Toro Rosso was typically keen to gain a feel for the conditions, experienced heads Fernando Alonso and Pedro de la Rosa agreed that it would be pointless to risk their cars under the circumstances. In fact, the championship-leading Ferrari driver was the only man without a lap time to his name when the action ended at half past 11. Atop the timesheets, lap times did begin to decrease but the best effort was still well over the two-minute mark.

In the dying moments, Felipe Massa stopped at the Bus Stop Chicane with a heavily smoking engine, which Ferrari has verified to GPUpdate.net was an old unit. The entire field now hopes for dry running this afternoon, as Saturday’s qualifying session is not expected to be interrupted by rain. Question marks remain over the weather for Sunday.


Michael Schumacher began his 300th Grand Prix weekend with a new-look platinum helmet and one large moment though Eau Rouge, with Maldonado and Paul di Resta also escaping crashes at the infamous section of race track. No driver met the barriers, but no less than five out-braked themselves and ventured across the run-off area of Les Combes.


Results

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	02:11.389	20
2.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	02:11.941	14
3.	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	02:12.004	12
4.	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	02:12.824	15
5.	Mark Webber	Red Bull	02:13.191	13
6.	Sergio Perez	Sauber	02:13.861	16
7.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	02:14.210	14
8.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	02:14.660	16
9.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	02:14.860	12
10.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	02:15.402	13
11.	Paul di Resta	Force India	02:15.812	11
12.	Timo Glock	Marussia	02:16.409	16
13.	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India	02:16.786	10
14.	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham	02:16.788	16
15.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	02:16.827	5
16.	Jenson Button	McLaren	02:16.861	8
17.	Charles Pic	Marussia	02:17.519	14
18.	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	02:18.199	10
19.	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT	02:19.546	12
20.	Dani Clos	HRT	02:19.689	12
21.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	02:38.701	9
22.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	02:40.749	4
23.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus	02:46.580	9
24.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	no time	2