BBC report that Jenson Button was doing his track walk when a downpour hit, and when he arrived back at McLaren HQ the power failed and he conducted half of his interviews in the dark!
Happy birthday Mike Gascoyne, Lotus technical chief.
Practice 1:
Force India test driver Paul di Resta is in Liuzzi’s car, and Malaysian Fairuz Fauzy gets Kovalainen’s seat.
PdlR 1:53.090
Mark Webber pits – an over-heating problem for his Red Bull? Stickers on his bodywork bubbling up and peeling off!
Fauzy 1.41.552
JA 1:40.119 … and shortly after tells his team he has a problem with the engine
JB 1:35.464
LH 1:34.921
PdlR takes his Sauber for a detour through the gravel … and then a couple of laps later FM does the same
Chequered flag; fastest were LH, NR, JB, MS, RK, MW, AS, FA, SV, SB.
Practice 2:
The was rain between the 1st and 2nd practice sessions but it’s dry now; track is almost 50°C
LdG is first on track
KK spins in the hairpin
SB 1:36.926
LH 1:34.954
MW parks the Red Bull with an engine failure
MS 1:34.674 … but almost immediately LH posts 1:34.276 to re-take P1
LH complains about his McLaren’s up-shifting, despite still being fastest
20mins left – rain clouds gathering
Chequered flag; fastest were LH, SV, NR, JB, MS, RK, FA, SB, VP, AS.
Practice 3: Saturday, 1pm local time / 1am EDT.
BBC reports the FIA is set to introduce a ban on outboard mirrors from the Chinese Grand Prix. Teams with outboard mirrors include Ferrari, Red Bull, Force India and Williams. Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel addressed the issue, saying: “We have no concerns for this weekend, we are much more concerned that from the next race onwards we’ll have to run the mirrors inboard and our car is losing quite some performance due to that.”
