McLaren was fastest after the first day of running in China, just as they were in Malaysia. The rain interrupted qualifying session for the last race did not allow the team to display if their new developments have closed the qualifying gap to the pacesetting Red Bulls but with the forecast promising for tomorrow the Woking team will get a much clearly picture of how they stand relative to their rivals.
World champion Jenson Button was fastest in the first session with Lewis Hamilton topping the times in the afternoon. McLaren seems to have a well balanced chassis this weekend and with the F-Duct once more proving beneficial in a straight line the team can afford to carry more wing and have greater grip in the tighter sections of the Shanghai track.
Mercedes had a good day running third and fourth in both sessions ahead of the Red Bulls. Noci Rosberg once more got the better of Michael Schumacher but the seven times world champion was only 0.011s behind. Schumacher is returning to the scene of his last victory and has seemed quietly confident that he is getting to grips with his new mount.
Championship leading Ferrari struggled through the practice sessions with Fernando Alonso suffering another blown engine and finishing tenth ahead of championship leading teammate Felipe Massa. Alonso has now blown two of his allocation of eight engines for the season and while it is early days in the season he now has his back against the wall as he may have to limit his running in some of the latter Grand Prix weekends.
Jamie Alguersuari backed up his performance in Malaysia with a solid eighth fastest time, the young Spaniard fared considerably better than his teammate Sebastian Buemi who suffered an alarming front suspension failure. The Swiss driver was braking down the back straight from 200 mph when the front right upright failed and caused the left upright to fail. Both front wheels were free from the car and the Toro Rosso driver was powerless to control the tobogganing car. Fortunately he emerged unscathed but with one wheel hurtling the barriers and coming to rest in the spectator zone Formula 1 can breathe a sigh of relief that no fans were present in the area.
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