Friday times are a notoriously precarious indicator of true form as teams run different tyres and fuel loads to one another while assessing their options and comparisons can therefore be difficult. But the fact that Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren-Mercedes and Fernando Alonso' Renault were separated by just over a 10th of a second here has raised hopes of them staging another stunning race like the recent Japanese Grand Prix, where McLaren's team principal, Ron Dennis, left the pit wall in tears after his driver had driven the race of the decade. Both Raikkonen and Alonso slithered off track at times as they tested the limits, neither of them doing any damage. Conditions were relatively cool as low cloud persisted throughout the day and there was a high level of moisture in the air. Lap times were, for the first time this season, considerably quicker than last year's. According to Bridgestone and Michelin, wear on the circuit's bitumen has exposed more of the underlying asphalt, improving the grip.
That, in turn, has raised concern that tomorrow's China Grand Prix will be even more gruelling than last year's event."The car was quite hard to drive ," Alonso said, "but I think that is normal on the first day at this circuit. It was also very windy, which had an impact on the car balance in the high-speed corners. But we managed to test all the tyres, did some good laps and completed our long runs: the two types of tyre are quite close in performance, so we will have to work on the choice tonight. I think the circuit conditions will improve tomorrow, and as the grip levels increase then the car balance will improve too.""A good start to the weekend, and let's hope it continues this way," Raikkonen said.
"Everything has been working well, and the car feels really strong."While Raikkonen lapped his McLaren in 1min 34.092sec, the Spaniard took his Renault round in 1:34.226. Juan Pablo Montoya and Rubens Barrichello were close to them with 1:34.541 and 1:34.618 respectively, while Giancarlo Fisichella pushed his Renault to 1:34.932 for the seventh fastest time.Jenson Button was ninth, and relieved to be driving after a viral infection that he picked up on Wednesday night turned into a high fever yesterday morning. BAR-Honda's test driver, Anthony Davidson, was on standby, but Button rallied."We've completed all our planned running for today and achieved a lot of laps," Button said. "We suffered from low grip this morning but the grip level improved in the afternoon.
