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Brawn ahead again

Opening practice for the Chinese Grand Prix carried an unfamiliar look for this year as Lewis Hamilton, with his McLaren featuring an extra small extension on the diffuser, setting the fastest time ahead of the two Brawn GP runners.

The second session, however, saw a return to form as Jenson Button vaulted back to the top, the winner of the last two races setting a best of 1:35.679 to head Nico Rosberg, the Williams again going well, by just a few one-thousandths of a second. Rubens Barrichello duly came in third in the second Brawn, while Red Bull continues to show their pace with Mark Webber third and Sebastian Vettel fourth, these two separated by very little, yet already four tenths off the pace of the Brawn.

The rest of the usual suspects showed next, with Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock for Toyota either side of Kazuki Nakajima in the second Williams.
McLaren returned to familiar territory here as Heikki Kovalainen was ninth, one second from the leading pace, and Hamilton 13th, while decent pace was shown by Sebastiens Bourdais and Buemi in the STR cars to line up 10th and 15th, the Frenchman quicker than the works Ferrari duo of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen in 12th and 14th positions.

While an impressive run by Adrian Sutil put him and the Force India in 11th position, Renault had a torrid time with Nelson Piquet and Fernando Alonso languishing in 16th and 19th, and BMW similarly troubled with Robert Kubica 17th and Nick Heidfeld 18th.

Written: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:00:26