» 2012 Japanese GP: Button leads McLaren 1-2 in opening practice

Jenson Button has led a McLaren 1-2 at the end of the opening practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, beating Mercedes-bound team-mate Lewis Hamilton to top spot by less than a quarter of a second.

Despite the region having had a near-miss with some super-typhoon conditions in the region, the drivers and fans were greeted with sunny conditions when the circuit opened for business.

The session saw two changes in line-up: Williams reserve Valtteri Bottas was once again clocking more practice miles in the team’s FW34 at Bruno Senna’s expense, while Caterham reserve driver Giedo van der Garde was having his first FP1 outing since the Chinese Grand Prix. The Dutch driver finished the session as the second-slowest runner.

But the recent weather made the five-kilometre circuit slow to grip up, leading to a couple of hairy moments for drivers over the course of the ninety-minute session.

Fortunately no one landed up with any damaged cars or major offs, but Nico Rosberg did bring the session to an early close – admittedly by a few seconds – when his Mercedes ground to a halt at Turn 4.

Once some serious times started to get posted at the end of the first half-hour, the McLarens were looking tough to beat. Hamilton posted the first benchmark lap of 1:37.008, and it took a while before anyone was able to get close to that time.

Mark Webber was the only driver who could get close, and he would move to the top of the timesheets with his hard-tyre run and remained quickest until the final half-hour when Button posted his session-topping effort, while Hamilton vaulted into second place.

And that’s the way the order remained, with the two Mercedes’ of Rosberg and the retiring Michael Schumacher completing the top-five, with local hero Kamui Kobayashi pleasing his fans with the sixth-fastest time of the session.

Felipe Massa looked solid in seventh, with Paul di Resta, Nico Hulkenberg and Pastor Maldonado rounding out the top ten places on the timesheets.

Three of the field’s World Champions had quiet sessions. Kimi Raikkonen was thirteenth in his Lotus – armed with its new double DRS – while Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel finished down the order in eleventh and seventeenth, respectively.

Today’s second practice session gets underway at 2:00PM local time.

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

	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-27	1:34.507		20
2.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes MP4-27	1:34.740	+ 0.233	26
3.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault RB8	1:34.856	+ 0.349	24
4.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG F1 W03	1:35.059	+ 0.552	18
5.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes AMG F1 W03	1:35.112	+ 0.615	20
6.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari C31	1:35.199	+ 0.692	27
7.	Felipe Massa	Scuderia Ferrari F2012	1:35.283	+ 0.776	24
8.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes VJM05	1:35.299	+ 0.792	18
9.	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India Mercedes VJM05	1:35.474	+ 0.967	22
10.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Renault FW34	1:35.478	+ 0.971	24
11.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F2012	1:35.484	+ 0.977	26
12.	Sergio Pérez	Sauber Ferrari C31	1:35.584	+ 1.077	24
13.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus F1 Renault E20	1:35.691	+ 1.184	22
14.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Renault E20	1:35.724	+ 1.217	21
15.	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR7	1:36.123	+ 1.616	19
16.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR7	1:36.222	+ 1.715	25
17.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault RB8	1:36.366	+ 1.859	23
18.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Renault FW34	1:36.389	+ 1.882	24
19.	Timo Glock	Marussia Racing Cosworth MR01	1:37.716	+ 3.209	17
20.	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham Renault CT01	1:38.295	+ 3.788	23
21.	Charles Pic	Marussia Racing Cosworth MR01	1:38.616	+ 4.109	25
22.	Narain Karthikeyan	HRTF1 Cosworth F112	1:39.043	+ 4.536	25
23.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham Renault CT01	1:39.374	+ 4.867	22
24.	Pedro de la Rosa	HRTF1 Cosworth F112	1:39.688	+ 5.181	19