Chinese GP: Bottas leads Maldonado in FP1

The opening Friday practice for the 2012 Chinese Grand Prix would get underway with a damp track after overnight rain. Pirelli had brought their medium and soft tyres for this event and for the Williams F1 team this session would see Valtteri Bottas replace Bruno Senna, as happened in Malaysia. Both Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri would come out early in the session and as the session progressed Pastor would remain in the top six. With twenty minutes remaining Pastor was in third and as the session drew to a close Pastor would move up to third with a 1m:40.540, running on the intermediate tyre.

For Valtteri his best lap would not come until right near the end of the session when the conditions had improved. He would set a 1m:41.941 to be eighth. This would become fifth with a 1m:40.298 but both Pastor and Valtteri would be passed by a rush of drivers with Valtteri dropping to be thirteenth and Pastor fifteenth. Valtteri's efforts weer even better in that he would only complete eighth laps during the session. It was a session where it would be difficult to draw any conclusions as the track conditions made it difficult to get any true dry running.

Pos  Driver         	   Team		   	 Time       Laps
 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m37.106   7
 2.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m38.116s  14
 3.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m38.316s  14
 4.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m38.584s  13
 5.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m38.911s  12
 6.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m38.977s  15
 7.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m39.198s  12
 8.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m39.199s  6
 9.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m39.748s  16
10.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m39.768s  14
11.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m40.056s  14
12.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m40.153s  14
13.  Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault      1m40.298s  8
14.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m40.328s  13
15.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault      1m40.540s  12
16.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault      1m41.071s  14
17.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m41.204s  14
18.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth     1m42.330s  14
19.  Giedo van der Garde   Caterham-Renault      1m42.521s  11
20.  Jules Bianchi         Force India-Mercedes  1m44.118s  8
21.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth          1m44.227s  10
22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth     1m44.500s  15
23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1m47.204s  12
24.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault         1m50.465s  11