Red Bull set pace in practice

Mark Webber
12 April 2012

Red Bull Racing lived up to their billing as title favourites ahead of the new Formula One season by blitzing their rivals in first practice ahead of Sunday's Australian Grand Prix.

Mark Webber who finished out in front ahead of team-mate Sebastian Vettel, F1's youngest world champion.

The Australian posted a lap of one 26.831secs, just under a tenth of a second faster than the best time posted in FP1 last year, leaving Vettel 0.327secs adrift.

Behind them, and whether it is an ominous indictor remains to be seen because these are very early days, but Ferrari's Fernando Alonso finished 0.918secs behind Webber, with the rest nowhere.

Mercedes' Nico Rosberg was fourth quickest, followed by Williams' Rubens Barrichello, but they were 1.321secs and 1.599secs adrift respectively.

Then came the McLaren duo of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, with their cars sporting a more conventional exhaust system compared to the radical design that plagued them during testing, however, they were both just over 1.6secs off the pace.

Michael Schumacher in his Mercedes, the Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi and Renault's Vitaly Petrov completed the top 10, all just under two seconds down, with Felipe Massa 11th after a difficult session that included a trundle across the gravel early on.

However, the most eye-catching part of the session came from the impact of the new Pirelli tyres. The Italian manufacturer has replaced Bridgestone from this season, and there is every indication they will play a significant role in determining the destiny of the championship.

One television shot zoomed in on a tyre on world champion Sebastian Vettel's car that was missing a significant chunk of rubber, almost appearing as if it had been cut out such was the depth of the damage.

The expectation is that after the bulletproof reliability of the Bridgestones that necessitated just one change per race, and then only because the rules forced the teams to do so, the likelihood is there will be three, potentially four pit stops on Sunday.

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