» Malaysian GP: Hamilton quickest in first practice

Lewis Hamilton has gone quickest in today’s first practice session for the Malaysian Grand Prix. The McLaren driver finished half a second clear of defending champion Sebastian Vettel at the end of the 90-minute session.

The session was expected to provide teams with their only dry-weather running of the day and – with afternoon showers predicted to lash the Sepang circuit this afternoon in time for the second practice session, the teams attempted to complete as much mileage as possible.

Behind the leading pair, the Mercedes duo of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher were third- and fourth-quickest, themselves separated by barely 0.01 seconds based on their fastest laps of the session.

With the Malaysian circuit designed to separate the aerodynamically efficient cars from their weaker counterparts, it was little surprise to see the leading quartet of McLarens, Mercedes’, Red Bulls and Lotus F1 challengers at the sharp end of the timesheets – that being said, fuel loads are the great unknown in this session, and the complete picture is rarely apparent after one practice session.

Of the leading four teams, Jenson Button was the only driver who failed to slip into the top-eight on the timing screens. The Englishman finished ninth-fastest this session, narrowly beaten by Force India driver Paul di Resta – his team-mate Nico Hülkenberg sandwiched the McLaren driver by going tenth-fastest.

Williams reserve driver Valtteri Bottas had his first ever F1 outing during a Grand Prix weekend, with the Finnish driver getting behind the wheel of Bruno Senna’s regular mount in this session. Bottas will complete at least thirteen more of these practice outings over the course of the season – all in Senna’s car, hardly surprising given the comparative amounts of backing that he and team-mate Pastor Maldonado bring to the Grove team.

Bottas performed well on his first outing, and even finished ahead of Maldonado on the timesheets, as well as going quicker than more-experienced runners like Felipe Massa, Kamui Kobayashi, and Fernando Alonso.

Heikki Kovalainen and Vitaly Petrov managed to get their Caterhams ahead of a couple of better-fancied runners in this session, with the pair ending up just over two seconds off Hamilton’s session-leading pace.

Not surprisingly, the Marussia and HRTs brought up the rear, although the latter team’s cars were just fractionally off the theoretical 107% pace this time around. Narain Karthikeyan again lost valuable track time when his car ground to a halt during the session with an hydraulics problem.

2012 Malaysian Formula 1 Grand Prix – Free Practice 1 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes MP4-27	1:38.021		19
2.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault RB8	1:38.535	+ 0.514	21
3.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG F1 W03	1:38.813	+ 0.792	21
4.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes AMG F1 W03	1:38.826	+ 0.805	19
5.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Renault E20	1:38.919	+ 0.898	17
6.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault RB8	1:39.092	+ 1.071	20
7.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus F1 Renault E20	1:39.128	+ 1.107	22
8.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes VJM05	1:39.298	+ 1.277	23
9.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-27	1:39.323	+ 1.302	15
10.	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India Mercedes VJM05	1:39.440	+ 1.419	19
11.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Renault FW34	1:39.724	+ 1.703	23
12.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Renault FW34	1:39.783	+ 1.762	23
13.	Felipe Massa	Scuderia Ferrari F2012	1:39.896	+ 1.875	16
14.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari C31	1:39.910	+ 1.889	21
15.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F2012	1:39.980	+ 1.959	23
16.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR7	1:40.099	+ 2.078	23
17.	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham Renault CT01	1:40.247	+ 2.226	19
18.	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR7	1:40.469	+ 2.448	23
19.	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham Renault CT01	1:40.857	+ 2.836	25
20.	Sergio Pérez	Sauber Ferrari C31	1:41.085	+ 3.064	23
21.	Timo Glock	Marussia Racing Cosworth MR01	1:43.170	+ 5.149	18
22.	Charles Pic	Marussia Racing Cosworth MR01	1:44.580	+ 6.559	14
23.	Narain Karthikeyan	HRTF1 Cosworth F112	1:45.360	+ 7.339	8
24.	Pedro de la Rosa	HRTF1 Cosworth F112	1:45.528	+ 7.507	18