» 2012 Brazilian GP: Hamilton quickest in FP1

Lewis Hamilton has set the pace in the opening practice session for the Formula 1 season finale at Brazil. With the running a prototype Pirelli tyre compound this session, Hamilton edged out Sebastian Vettel by just nine-thousandths of a second.

This was a critical session for the field. Not only are there crucial battles up and down the championship standings, but the opportunity to run on 2013-spec Pirelli tyres would be the teams’ one and only opportunity to gather critical data for next year’s car designs.

One would therefore think that all teams would aim to run as much as possible in the session, and barring any mechanical dramas, the field did so.

All except one outfit: HRT, which only completed less than half of the laps piloted by the other eleven teams. As expected, both Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan occupied the final two places on the timesheets, and the limited running was all part of the team’s ‘plan’, or so their end-of-day press release would claim.

The truth is perhaps not too far from this. Since the team has been put on the market, rumours have abounded that the team has a scarcity of spare parts, and the parts that are being run on both F112 chassis’ have limited mileage left in their lifespan. One can save money in many ways, it would seem…

Kimi Räikkönen was the only other driver to register a fraction of the mileage of the others, but it is believed that the Finn’s Lotus was stricken with an exhaust problem, which explained why he was confined to the garage for at least half the session and only clocked up sixteen laps.

Up at the front, it was a tightly-fought contest for top honours, and in the end it was Hamilton who took his McLaren to the top of the pecking order in his final Grand Prix for the Woking squad.

Last weekend’s winner in Texas posted a 1:14.131, just nine thousandths of a second quicker than Sebastian Vettel, who was himself less than six-hundredths of a second faster than his Red Bull Racing team-mate Mark Webber.

Right behind the leading trio came Jenson Button, with Fernando Alonso completing the top-five spots, only a quarter of a second slower than Hamilton on the timesheets.

The session was generally incident-free – save for a spin each for Timo Glock and Felipe Massa. Both were able to rejoin the action with nothing more than damaged pride and a few interesting shots for the cameras.

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

	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes MP4-27	1:14.131		33
2.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault RB8	1:14.140	+ 0.009	35
3.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault RB8	1:14.198	+ 0.067	34
4.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-27	1:14.217	+ 0.086	31
5.	Fernando Alonso	Scuderia Ferrari F2012	1:14.392	+ 0.261	28
6.	Felipe Massa	Scuderia Ferrari F2012	1:14.716	+ 0.585	29
7.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus F1 Renault E20	1:14.719	+ 0.588	33
8.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes VJM05	1:14.738	+ 0.607	34
9.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Renault FW34	1:15.015	+ 0.884	37
10.	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India Mercedes VJM05	1:15.050	+ 0.919	32
11.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes AMG F1 W03	1:15.114	+ 0.983	36
12.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari C31	1:15.255	+ 1.124	31
13.	Sergio Pérez	Sauber Ferrari C31	1:15.396	+ 1.265	32
14.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Renault FW34	1:15.413	+ 1.282	23
15.	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR7	1:15.587	+ 1.456	35
16.	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus F1 Renault E20	1:15.701	+ 1.570	16
17.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR7	1:16.048	+ 1.917	35
18.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG F1 W03	1:16.315	+ 2.184	36
19.	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham Renault CT01	1:16.460	+ 2.329	32
20.	Timo Glock	Marussia Racing Cosworth MR01	1:16.506	+ 2.375	31
21.	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham Renault CT01	1:16.617	+ 2.486	30
22.	Charles Pic	Marussia Racing Cosworth MR01	1:17.234	+ 3.103	26
23.	Pedro de la Rosa	HRTF1 Cosworth F112	1:17.678	+ 3.547	15
24.	Narain Karthikeyan	HRTF1 Cosworth F112	1:17.895	+ 3.764	13