There are two ways a Friday Practice 1 session can go.  Either you get a lot of running, with every driver out on circuit pounding out laps while teams try to shake down the car, get everything shipshape as soon as possible, or you get 11 teams apparently sitting on their hands, cars up on jacks, drivers taking naps in the back of their garage.  You would think that at the first race weekend of a new season with a whole raft of rules changes that you'd get the former type of P1 session over the latter.

Not so much.  Four drivers didn't turn a timed lap, and Lettuce Grosjean never even left the pits with engine problems.  Most of the rest turned around 25 laps, though there were quite a few who didn't reach double digits.  Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes made it about 400 meters before it stopped on track with an apparent engine failure (it turned out to be a sensor issue, so he'll be back for P2).  When cars were on track, they looked squirmy and touchy.  And rightfully so: the cars actually have torque now.  It looks like the cars are fishtailing out of every slow corner... just thinking about accelerating seems to send them sideways.

It was GLORIOUS.

P2 coming up in a bit... I'll watch most of it, maybe the whole thing, but the writeup will come Friday morning, like as not.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:07 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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