UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Raikkonen dominant at Spa

Mclaren lag behind

Ferrari took round one as on-track action resumed this morning, with the first practice session at Spa Francorchamps going the way of a dominant Kimi Raikkonen.

It was, however, a one handed affair from the Maranello team as Felipe Massa was forced to sit out the session having run off track early on with just two laps, and no time, in the bag.

The level of Raikkonens dominance was highlighted by the next fastest car – naturally a Mclaren and that of Lewis Hamilton – being a full half a second slower than the Finn, who appeared to have more in the bag when setting some absolutely stunning opening sector times only to fail to string the rest of the lap together. If he had, the Ferrari could have been a second ahead of the silver car.

Fernando Alonso – something of a lonely figure at Mclaren these days – came home third, a tenth and a bit behind Hamilton, and was chased hard by the BMW of Nick Heidfeld who finished just hundredths behind the Spaniard. The fierce pace and nature of this wonderful circuit meant these were the only men within a second of the lead Ferrari.

Next came Nico Rosberg, the German doing his usual excellent performance in the Williams FW29 with a time three tenths off the next man, and he was followed by Robert Kubica in the second BMW – a further couple of tenths behind – and Williams team-mate Alex Wurz, getting to grips with the car for once, who came in one and a half seconds down on the fastest time.

Rounding out the top ten were Jarno Trulli in the Toyota, Heikki Kovalainen for Renault and Jenson Button in the Honda, the last of these a whisker under two whole seconds off the pace.

Further back the Red Bull pair of Mark Webber and David Coulthard did their usual solid if unspectacular job for 13th and 14th, and the Toro Rosso, Super Aguri and Spyker crews brought up the rear.

A word, though, for Adrian Sutil who continues to extract the maximum - and more – from the ‘b’ spec Spyker; the German finished with first and last sector times that would have him among the top twelve – impressive stuff from the minnows indeed.

The second session comes in a couple of hours – will we see a Mclaren fight back, as at Monza?

Join UpdateSport later to follow the session live.

Written: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 09:58:47