Turkey Practice 1: Fernando 3rd Lewis 4th

By Sam Cooper
August 24 2007

The Vodafone McLaren Mercedes formula one team have completed the first practice session for this weekends Turkish grand prix, with Fernando Alonso finishing the warm and sunny session third, with Britain’s Lewis Hamilton ending the session in 4th place.

The session was slow to start with only a handful of drivers completing a timed lap with 55 minutes to go. As the session marched on, Kimi Räikkönen set the fastest lap of the session so far with just over half an hour to go, his time was 4 tenths faster than his Ferrari team mate Felipe Massa.

The McLaren’s could do little to challenge the Ferrari’s, their best times were over a second slower than the dominant Ferrari’s. At the end of the session, it was Fernando Alonso who would be the faster of the two drivers. Current championship leader Lewis Hamilton ended the session 4th, under a tenth of a second behind his Spanish team mate.

Renault driver Hekki Kovalinen ended the session 5th, with Williams driver Nico Rosberg in 6th position the pair both over 1.3 seconds behind the dominant Ferrari’s. Ralf Schumacher followed behind the Williams, with Giancarlo Fisichella in 8th one and a halaf seconds behind the pace setter Kimi Räikkönen.

In the dying moments of the session Red Bull driver David Coulthard’s car caught fire, thankfully the Scot was unharmed. Times from the session are shown below.