2009 Chinese Grand Prix - Event Report - Practice and Qualifying

Practice and Qualifying

"The car instantly felt a bit better. I can feel more stability and downforce from the front. We've definitely made a step forward for this race. The car feels much stronger through the corners and I think we've got a very positive baseline for the rest of the weekend. My first run on the options felt quite consistent".

Lewis Hamilton, on the performance his car during Friday's practice sessions

Three practice sessions were held prior to the race; two sessions on Friday April 17, 2009, each lasting 90 minutes, and one 60 minute session on Saturday April 18, 2009. World Champion Lewis Hamilton's McLaren was fastest at the end of the first practice session on Friday morning ahead of the Brawn GP cars of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. Hamilton's McLaren team-mate Heikki Kovalainen was fourth fastest. Hamilton, whose McLaren MP4-24 car was fitted with a new interim diffuser and front wing, clocked his fastest lap of 1:37.334, around a tenth of a second clear of Button, around sixty minutes into the session. Red Bull's Mark Webber was fifth in the session, with Toyota's Trulli and Timo Glock sixth and eighth. Fernando Alonso, Nico Rosberg and Sébastien Bourdais completed the top ten lap times of the first session. Button was the fastest in Friday afternoon's second practice session, followed by Rosberg and Barrichello. Red Bull drivers Webber and Sebastian Vettel who headed the time-sheets during the initial phases of the session were eventually classified fourth and fifth fastest respectively. Toyota cars once again managed a competitive result as Trulli and Glock finished sixth and eighth with Williams' Kazuki Nakajima splitting them. The two McLarens could not recreate their results from the morning session with Kovalainen finishing ninth fastest and Hamilton 13th.

Williams' Rosberg was quickest in the practice session on Saturday morning. Rosberg, who slid off the track onto the gravel at the start of the session, timed 1:36.133 to top the timesheets, followed by Trulli and Hamilton. Button finished fourth with Renault's Nelson Piquet, Jr. clocking the fifth fastest lap time for the session. Piquet's team-mate Fernando Alonso on the other hand, whose Renault R29 car was fitted with new diffuser and without the KERS, could only manage a time good enough for 19th fastest. BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica who also removed his KERS for this session, improved significantly from his results in the earlier two sessions. Timo Glock's Toyota TF109 car faced gearbox problems early in the session and had to change the gearbox for the upcoming qualifying session. Glock received a five-place grid penalty for this gearbox change.

"...if you only have one lap and if you have any mistake, you go wide or whatever, there is no second chance and it means it is the end. It was not so easy but I am very, very happy. Unbelievable we made it to pole position in the end."

Sebastian Vettel, in post-qualifying press conference.

The qualifying session on Saturday afternoon was split into three parts. Sebastian Vettel achieved his second career pole position – and the first for his Red Bull Racing team – at the end of the session. Vettel, who ran only one flying lap each in the final two parts of qualifying, due to problems with the driveshafts of his car, edged out Fernando Alonso by two-tenths of a second in the final part of qualifying. Red Bull's other driver Mark Webber finished third, immediately ahead of Brawn GP cars of Barrichello and Button. Kimi Räikkönen, after a disappointing performance during practice, secured eighth position behind Trulli in sixth and Rosberg in seventh place. Hamilton and Toro Rosso's Sébastien Buemi completed the top ten on the grid. Nick Heidfeld, Heikki Kovalainen, Felipe Massa, Timo Glock and Kazuki Nakajima made up 11th to 15th on the grid. Drivers eliminated in the first qualifying session and classified 16th to 20th were Sébastien Bourdais, Nelson Piquet, Jr., Robert Kubica, Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella. Due to his five-place penalty, Glock was placed 19th and Nakajima, Bourdais, Piquet, Kubica and Sutil were each promoted by one position in the revised starting grid.