By Emma Aitken
March 21 2008

McLaren could not come back at Ferrari today at first free practise. Ferrari looked formidable throughout, even with Raikkonen's car having mechanical failure. Until that point Kimi's pace looked blistering. There were a few front ends and back tails sliding around the track in the blistering heat, including Hamilton's.

Look at the time sheets and you would think Ferrari had it in the bag this morning. Well, yes and no. Massa’s pace was certainly impressive; Raikkonen’s too until he had to have his car lifted off the track after suffering a mechanical failure. Things aren’t looking as stable for the Scuderia at present as they normally do. That said, McLaren could not match the pace of Ferrari and had no come back for them.

Hamilton only managed fifth with his team mate Kovolainen slightly ahead in fourth, neither of them managing to get out there and beat the early time of Raikkonen’s. After struggling with braking issues, and on the soft compound Bridgestone tires Rosberg was the driver who split the two McLaren’s on the timesheets. David Coulthard caused the session to be red flagged, following a big accident.

He had run his RB4 wide at the exit of turn 12 and headed across the asphalt run off. Unfortunately, as he tried to rejoin the circuit proper he was launched into the air by a lethal kerb on the inside of turn 13 and his front suspension shattered to bits. The session was stopped for ten minutes. His team mate, Webber’s practise session ended in a huge plume of smoke with an apparent engine failure. Massa came out after the session was restarted to remain unbeaten in a timed lap. Hamilton could not improve on his time, having a minor run off on his final lap.

Nelson Piquet looked far more promising this morning after a slightly dubious debut in Australia. He all but matched his former World Champion team mate Alonso, finishing just behind him in seventh. Kubica left it quite late on in the session to come out and claim his eighth position.

An encouraging morning for Honda saw Button finish just behind the BMW in ninth. Sebastian Vettel spun his Toro Rosso under braking for the final hair pin after what looked like a brake disc failure. There were quite a few excursions off course in the hot, sultry conditions. In the baking sunshine the circuit was quite slippery. 

1	Massa	Ferrari	1m35.392
2	Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m36.459
3	Kovolainen	McLaren	1m36.556
4	Rosberg	Wiliams	1m36.578
5	Hamilton	McLaren	1m36.626
6	Alsonso	Renault	1m37.022
7	Piquet	Renault	1m37.034
8	Kubica	BMW	1m37.218
9	Button	Honda	1m37.282
10	Trulli	Toyota	1m37.540
11	Heidfeld	BMW	1m37.649
12	Nakajima	Williams	1m37.649
13	Barrichello	Honda	1m37.776
14	Glock	Toyota	1m37.782
15	Vettel	Toro Rosso	1m38.219
16	Coulthard	Red Bull Racing	1m38.232
17	Webber	Red Bull Racing	1m38.707
18	Bourdais	Toro Rosso	1m38.798
19	Fisichella	Force India	1m39.046
20	Sato	Super Aguri	1m40.178
21	Davidson	Super Aguri	1m40.351
22	Sutil	Force India	1m41.269