Chinese F1 Grand Prix 2012: Friday's Free Practice Report - The Silver Arrows fight at the top

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The Chinese Grand Prix weekend got underway today with Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton completing the opening two practice sessions at the Shanghai International Circuit.

- The pair completed 41 laps between them this morning, finishing the first session with Nico in P1 and Lewis in P2

- The afternoon session focused on longer runs and race preparation with both tyre compounds

- Nico completed 35 laps in the second session and ended the day in P4, with Lewis completing 39 laps in P7

Drivers ++ Car No. ++ Chassis No. ++ Practice One ++ Practice Two
Nico Rosberg ++ 9 ++ F1 W04 / 03 ++ 21 laps, 1:36.717, P1 ++ 35 laps, 1:35.819, P4
Lewis Hamilton ++ 10 ++ F1 W04 / 04 ++ 20 laps, 1:37.171, P2 ++ 39 laps, 1:36.496, P7

Weather - Sunny
Temperatures - Air: 18-22°C / Track: 26-36°C

Nico Rosberg
“It was good to be back on the track here in Shanghai where I have experienced some really good moments in my career. I felt very comfortable in the car and it was a productive day for us, we definitely learnt a lot. We looked good on one lap, but there is some work still to do on the longer runs. Tyre degradation was particularly high on the option tyre out there today. So we need to analyse this and decide what is best to do in the race.”

Lewis Hamilton
“We’ve made a good start today but there is a lot of work to do overnight. The car feels reasonable although I’m still finding myself a little uncomfortable so we made a change for the afternoon session which was a really positive step. I’m hoping that we can continue to improve as I spend more time in the car. The tyres are going to be challenging this weekend, particularly the option compound. Our pace looked good and although I had some traffic on my quick lap, there was enough to give me a good feeling. We’ll find out in qualifying where we really are.”

Ross Brawn
“We’ve had a pretty good day here in Shanghai. There were a number of items that we wanted to evaluate and the programme has gone well. The car seems to have a good balance, the feedback from the drivers was positive, and I’m pleased with the race preparation that we have been able to complete. We can see where the challenges are for this weekend and tyre life is certainly going to require some attention. We need to do a good job tonight and then we should be able to have a reasonable final practice and qualifying session tomorrow.”

Toto Wolff
“This was a good and productive day without any problems for us. We tested quite a few things during the first session in the morning with positive results. As usual we ran both prime and option tyres in the afternoon and did our normal long runs. Keeping the option tyre from dropping off early is quite a big challenge. It’s early days and we are sure that there is more performance that we can extract from our technical package at this circuit.”

~ Official photos and report courtesy of MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS ~

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