McLaren duo fastestposted in F125 | 03 | 2011
MCLAREN DUO Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton may have topped the timesheets in today's second practice session for the Australian Grand Prix, but Bathgate's Paul di Resta was happy to finish quicker than his Force India team-mate Adrian Sutil.
While the German also took part in the morning session, Di Resta (pictured) handed his race car over to Force India test driver Nico Hulkenberg. But in the afternoon the Scot immediately showed his pace and finished the session 0.207s quicker than Sutil.
"It was a good to have the opportunity to start my season today," Di Resta, whose best lap of 1min 28.376secs put him 16th-quickest, said afterwards. "We were able to complete our planned programme and the tyres performed better than I expected.
"Overall I felt quite comfortable with the new systems on the car, but until I get into a competitive situation it is still too early to say how we'll do. We have another practice session in the morning, and so we'll look at the data from today and work on the small issues we had and our programme for qualifying.
"I am excited about tomorrow, but at the same time there is a job to be done and my focus is to achieve the best result I can for the team."
But while Red Bull duo Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were fastest in in the morning session, Button and Hamilton dominated proceedings in the afternoon; the two McLaren pair were the only drivers to break through the 1m25s barrier.
The session, which was run under race conditions for the last 30 minutes to test out the new overtaking zone, saw most of the fastest running take place, predictably, just before the hour mark when everyone tried the soft Pirelli 'Option' tyre.
It was during this period that first Hamilton posted a 1m25.854s, and then Button improved upon it to go 0.132s faster still. Whether or not McLaren's pace is a true measure of the overall picture remains unclear however, for Red Bull's drivers, who dominated session one, were instructed not to use their adjustable rear wings for much of the session.
In the end, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were unleashed, once they got on to the Option tyres, but neither could match Fernando Alonso's Ferrari, which ended the session third.
Michael Schumacher improved to sixth fastest in the Mercedes, having been fastest of all for a while. Felipe Massa, one of several drivers to run off-track during the session, was seventh.
Mexican rookie Sergio Perez was an impressive eighth fastest on his first grand prix day for Sauber, outpacing the sport's most experienced driver Rubens Barrichello, who was ninth for Williams - another to test the gravel run off at Turn 3.
Nico Rosberg completed the top 10 for Mercedes ahead of Jaime Alguersuari's Toro Rosso and Vitaly Petrov in the Renault.
Australian Grand Prix — Friday afternoon practice times:
1. Button: McLaren-Mercedes, 1m25.854s (32 laps);
2. Hamilton: McLaren-Mercedes, 1m25.986s +0.132 (31);
3. Alonso: Ferrari , 1m26.001s +0.147 (28);
4. Vettel: Red Bull-Renault, 1m26.014s +0.160 (35);
5. Webber: Red Bull-Renault, 1m26.283s +0.429 (33);
6. Schumacher: Mercedes, 1m26.590s +0.736 (31);
7. Massa: Ferrari , 1m26.789s +0.935 (34);
8. Perez: Sauber-Ferrari, 1m27.101s +1.247 (39);
9. Barrichello: Williams-Cosworth, 1m27.280s +1.426 (34);
10. Rosberg: Mercedes, 1m27.448s +1.594 (23);
11. Alguersuari: Toro Rosso-Ferrari, 1m27.525s +1.671 (31);
12. Petrov: Renault, 1m27.528s +1.674 (29);
13. Heidfeld: Renault, 1m27.536s +1.682 (22);
14. Buemi: Toro Rosso-Ferrari, 1m27.697s +1.843 (30);
15. Kobayashi: Sauber-Ferrari, 1m28.095s +2.241 (35);
16. di Resta: Force India-Mercedes, 1m28.376s +2.522 (33);
17. Sutil: Force India-Mercedes, 1m28.583s +2.729 (31);
18. Maldonado: Williams-Cosworth, 1m29.386s +3.532 (29);
19. Kovalainen: Lotus-Renault, 1m30.829s +4.975 (22);
20. Trulli: Lotus-Renault, 1m30.912s +5.058 (23);
21. D'Ambrosio: Virgin-Cosworth, 1m32.106s +6.252 (36);
22. Glock: Virgin-Cosworth, 1m32.135s +6.281 (30);
23. Liuzzi: HRT-Cosworth, No time (1)
(All Timing Unofficial)
CLICK HERE to see more photos of Paul in action today
Keep up-to-date with all the latest news by following us on twitter.com/scotcars
Jim McGill