F1 News
Date:
15/March/2013
Reigning double F1 World Champion Sebastian Vettel finished
the first day of the 2013 season on top of the Friday practice timesheets at
Melbourne, Australia.
The German star was quickest in both sessions, with
team-mate and local hero Mark Webber moving from fifth to second to complete a
perfect start for Red Bull.
“Overall it was a
good day for us. It was pretty seamless and there was no trouble with the car,”
confirmed Vettel. “After all the mileage of testing, it was fun to be out there
– this circuit doesn’t get easier, it’s a good challenge.
“The soft tyre doesn’t last too long, but the harder tyre is
a decent race tyre. The weather should be quite changeable tomorrow and, as we
can’t predict how much that will impact the tyres and car balance, we need to
be ready to change things.”
Third fastest was the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg, although
both he and new team-mate Lewis Hamilton suffered a sour end to the day.
Hamilton had made a solid start with fourth in opening
practice but slipped to seventh in the next session after an accident in the
closing minutes. While Hamilton’s car was being removed, Rosberg then pulled
off the circuit due to technical problems.
“We had a very good day today until the last five minutes of
the second session,” said Team Principal Ross Brawn. “Nico's car had a gearbox
issue which we were aware of during the session but decided to continue running
to maximise our track time as far as possible. With Lewis, there was some
damage to the floor of the car from an earlier run which caused him to go off.”
But the Mercedes problems were overshadowed by those of
Hamilton’s former team McLaren, which saw both its drivers - 2012 event winner
Jenson Button and new signing Sergio Perez - left outside the top ten and over
2.3s from Vettel.
“Our car appears to be lacking in grip and consistency, and
is suffering from significant understeer and poor ride. Try as we might, we
didn't move forward in performance terms during the course of the day, either,”
confessed Team Principal Martin Whitmarsh.
“But we've collected a lot of data and we'll be working
extremely hard to utilise that data in order to do whatever we can to effect
improvements.
"Moreover, you don't win World Championships in the
first grand prix of the year. Our car is complex. Perhaps we haven't yet worked
out how best to harness its potential, but we believe that potential is
there."
Lotus drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean were a
promising fourth and fifth on the timesheets, followed by the lead Ferrari of
Fernando Alonso.
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