» Turkish GP 1st Practice: Hamilton quickest in opening session

A bit of a turn up for the books in the opening free practice session for the Turkish Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton heading a McLaren 1-2, with a fastest time over a second clear of the nearest non-McLaren driver, Mercedes GP’s Michael Schumacher.

Nico Rosberg’s fourth place in the standings meant Mercedes engine power locked out the top-four positions on the timesheets, and actually took six of the top-twelve position all up, with Adrian Sutil 10th and Vitantonio Liuzzi 12th-quickest in the sister Force India.

However, Sutil was to blot his copybook with a heavy shunt at the fearsom Turn 8 in the final three minutes of the first 90-minute session of the weekend.

A warm, sunny morning greeted all 24 drivers, with ambient temperatures in the mid- to high-20s, and track temperatures soaring to the low 40-degree range.

Teams were certainly keen to clock up some mileage on the host of technical updates they brought to the circuit this weekend, and the two Lotus drivers were out on the track early to assess the revised rear wing brought to Turkey. Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli wound up quickest of the three rookie teams’ drivers at the end of the session.

The Red Bull and Force India teams were also debuting their maiden iterations of the ‘F-duct’ concept, although only Mark Webber’s RB6 was fitted with the device out of the two Red Bull drivers. That the ‘F-duct’-less Sebastian Vettel – who, incidentally, celebrates his 50th Grand Prix this weekend – lapped 0.2s quicker at the end of the session could be telling…

HRT elected to allow Sakon Yamamoto to have his first outing in the F110 as the team’s second Friday test driver, and unsurprisingly lapped slowest of the 24 runners, not helped in the least by a loose gurney flap on his rear wing.

Fellow HRT runner Karun Chandhok should be well pleased with his FP1 efforts, posting a fastest lap time that was quicker than both Virgin Racing cars – this despite losing previous track time when he had to pit mid-session with a suspected electrical glitch.

It was a generally quiet session with a few drivers running wide and bring more dust on the circuit, but Adrian Sutil’s heavy shunt livened things up when he lost control in the daunting Turn 8 and nosed into the tyre barriers, ripping off both front wheels and the front wing in the process. The reason for the accident has not yet been explained.

2010 Turkish Grand Prix Practice 1 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes	1:28.653	20
2.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes	+ 0.962	20
3.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	+ 1.097	24
4.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	+ 1.202	24
5.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Renault	+ 1.214	30
6.	Robert Kubica	Renault	+ 1.408	23
7.	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	+ 1.412	24
8.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Renault	+ 1.444	26
9.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	+ 1.641	20
10.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes	+ 1.848	17
11.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari	+ 1.962	20
12.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India Mercedes	+ 2.200	21
13.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+ 2.214	21
14.	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso Ferrari	+ 2.358	23
15.	Pedro de la Rosa	Sauber Ferrari	+ 2.585	17
16.	Nico Hülkenberg	Williams Cosworth	+ 2.702	23
17.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams Cosworth	+ 2.811	19
18.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari	+ 3.082	27
19.	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus Cosworth	+ 3.508	24
20.	Jarno Trulli	Lotus Cosworth	+ 4.337	22
21.	Karun Chandhok	HRT Cosworth	+ 6.223	13
22.	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin Racing Cosworth	+ 6.484	21
23.	Timo Glock	Virgin Racing Cosworth	+ 6.930	15
24.	Sakon Yamamoto	HRT Cosworth	+ 7.484	26