Turkish GP - Practice Session 1 - Wet Weather haunted drivers

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Friday Practice Session - 1, DHL Turkish Grand Prix, Istanbul Park



As it started to rain for the first time in 2011 season, a change in fortune expected over the weekend.

Turkish GP saw heavy rain in the First Free Practice session on Friday allowing drivers to run on Wet Weather Pirelli tyres for the first time. The session saw heavy rain that caused damp and slippery track.

As the session progressed, it became more and more difficult to hold the line and it was unbearable for drivers to cope up with the river that were created on track.

Many of the drivers were seen spinning on track that included Timo Glock, Paul Di Resta, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Karun Chandhok, Pastor Maldonado, Narain Karthikeyan. Pastor Maldonado and Michael Schumacher were seen spinning on track more than once, that showed how difficult it was to manage the car on track.

The world champion Sebastian Vettel went off the track into the barriers as just when only 26mins were left for the session. The right suspension, front,and rear of the car had sustained heavy damages but Vettel is alright. It was the multiapex Turn 8 that had seen Vettel crashing into the barriers as he went onto the Kerb and thereby could not able to control the car.

With the upgrades ready for most of the teams, Ferrari is the one that is seemed to be benefited the most. Ferrari's Fernando Alonso tops the time sheet within the few minutes of the session. Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher bring their Mercedes on top. Michael climbed the time sheet from 7th to 3rd steadily as the session progressed.

The upgrades that Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault have brought to their cars during the three weeks have made them to claim the first 7 position in the time sheet. Toro Rosso seemed to have get back into action with 8th and 9th finish in the chart. It is the braveheart Sebastian Buemi who put exceptional 22laps in the wet condition.

Mark Webber in the first of the two Red Bulls was only 11th fastest and was only able to put 5laps. Pastor Maldonado had a tough time in the car and was seen spinning on the track occasionally.

10 drivers were seen only putting less than 10laps in their car during the whole session. It was all due to save wet Pirelli's to be used and wear off.

Vitantonio Liuzzi in the HRT was seen putting 20laps in his car. Rain made it difficult for the rookie Sergio Perez to put a good lap time.

Mclaren considered to skip, most of the session and both their drivers put up only one lap in the car for the first 1hr. Only in the last few minutes, Jenson Button was able to put 3 more laps in his Mclaren but it was not good enough to see him even close to the time posted by closest rival also. He was 22sec off the pace. Lewis was the only driver who was not able to record a lap time during the entire practice session.

There is a possibility, track may get dried for the second practice session, if rain does not come to play again. Weather report suggest that tomorrow will be a dry session for the teams.

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1min 38.670sec		13
2	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1min 40.072sec	1.402	14
3	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1min 40.132sec	1.462	18
4	Nick Heidfeld	Renault	1min 40.338sec	1.668	9
5	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1min 40.401sec	1.731	10
6	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber - Ferrari	1min 40.421sec	1.751	16
7	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1min 40.697sec	2.027	14
8	Daniel Ricciardo	STR - Ferrari	1min 41.094sec	2.424	18
9	Sebastien Buemi	STR - Ferrari	1min 41.178sec	2.508	22
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India - Mercedes	1min 41.347sec	2.677	16
11	Mark Webber	Red Bull - Renault	1min 42.564sec	3.894	5
12	Pastor Maldonado	Williams - Cosworth	1min 42.597sec	3.927	7
13	Paul Di Resta	Force India - Mercedes	1min 43.525sec	4.855	11
14	Rubens Barrichello	Williams - Cosworth	1min 43.913sec	5.243	5
15	Jarno Trulli	Lotus - Renault	1min 43.986sec	5.316	6
16	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT - Cosworth	1min 44.787sec	6.117	20
17	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull - Renault	1min 44.954sec	6.284	4
18	Timo Glock	Virgin - Cosworth	1min 45.183sec	6.513	15
19	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Virgin - Cosworth	1min 45.237sec	6.567	11
20	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT - Cosworth	1min 48.461sec	9.791	8
21	Karun Chandhok	Lotus - Renault	1min 51.676sec	13.006	6
22	Sergio Perez	Sauber - Ferrari	1min 55.791sec	17.121	13
23	Jenson Button	Mclaren - Mercedes	2min 00.666sec	21.996	4
24	Lewis Hamilton	Mclaren - Mercedes			1