Zoom A late run from Hamilton gave him P1

Until the final minutes of this afternoon’s practice session for the Malaysian Grand Prix, Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen topped the timesheets for Ferrari. With ten minutes remaining of the 90-minute session, Lewis Hamilton peeled out of the pit lane in his McLaren Mercedes and vaulted to the top of the timesheets with a best lap of 1:35.055s, just over a tenth clear of Massa.

Kimi Raikkonen set the third fastest time , just under four-tenths adrift of Hamilton, and appeared to have a trouble-free session after being forced out of the morning running. Jenson Button was a surprise fourth fastest in his Honda, undoubtedly a low-fuel simulated qualifying lap, while Sebastian Vettel was another surprise with the fifth fastest time in his Toro Rosso Ferrari.

While Vettel had an incident free session, team-mate Sebastien Bourdais suffered an engine failure on his very first lap of the session. The Champ Car star was unable to take any further part in the running.

Jarno Trulli was a solid sixth fastest in his Toyota while Timo Glock languished down the timesheets in 17th position. Heikki Kovalainen was seventh fastest in the second McLaren Mercedes, but clearly did not attempt a fast lap on new tyres at the end of the session.

It was a typically low-key Friday for the BMW Sauber team as they work towards race conditions. Robert Kubica was eighth fastest while team-mate Nick Heidfeld was 13th of the 21 runners.

The ever-green Giancarlo Fisichella did a good job to set the ninth best time in his Force India Ferrari, showing the way to Adrian Sutil who was 18th in the sister VJM01. Kazuki Nakajima rounded out the top ten in this Williams Toyota ahead of Rubens Barrichello in the second Honda and Nico Rosberg in the second Williams.

Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet proved equally matched today for Renault in 14th and 15th positions respectively. However, Alonso seemed to suffer from a gearbox glitch mid-session and following that, only completed one short stint.

Mark Webber was the sole Red Bull Renault driver in action as the team opted not to run David Coulthard while they investigate the cause of his double front suspension failure from this morning. Webber ended the first day of action 16th ahead of Glock, Sutil and the Super Aguri Honda duo of Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson.

Earl ALEXANDER
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