Bridgestone's super soft tyre took Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's Fernando Alonso to the fastest time of the day amidst variable weather conditions at Hockenheim for the first day of the German Grand Prix.

Alonso set a 1m 16.265secs lap time in the drier afternoon session, after a morning where
Bridgestone's wet and intermediate tyres were used. Force India F1 Team driver Adrian Sutil set the fastest time in the morning, using Bridgestone's intermediate tyres.

Q&A with Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development

What was significant about today's running?
"Today was very challenging and interesting from a tyre perspective. We had a very wet circuit in the morning, but one which was drying through the session. Teams were able to evaluate the performance of the wet and intermediate tyres in these conditions which gives us and them very useful data on the crossover point between the wet and intermediates. The afternoon started with a track which was completely dry in some areas, but still with puddles in others. Again a challenge, but we saw good running with both compounds of the dry Bridgestone's in this session."

How do you expect this allocation to work over the weekend?
"We have never used such a wide gap between compounds for our allocation for a race before so this is a learning process for everyone. This afternoon we saw graining of all types on the super soft tyres, on the front and the rear. Interestingly, the front graining did not affect lap time so much today for some drivers. The hard tyre proved very durable, and warm-up was not as challenging as it could have been. Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to gain more data ahead of the race. However, we could have a wet circuit once more, and a wet qualifying session, so being on the right tyre at the right time through qualifying will be very important."

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Stats of the Day:
Practice One 10:00 - 11:30: 
Driver 		   Team			Time 	    Tyre 
Adrian Sutil 	   Force India F1 Team 	1m 25.701s  I
Felipe Massa 	   Scuderia Ferrari 	1m 26.850s  I
Jenson Button 	   Vodafone McLaren	1m 26.936s  I
 

Practice Two 14:00 - 15:30
Driver 		   Team			Time 	    Tyre
Fernando Alonso    Scuderia Ferrari 	1m 16.265s  SS
Sebastian Vettel   Red Bull Racing 	1m 16.294s  SS
Felipe Massa 	   Scuderia Ferrari 	1m 16.438s  SS

Compounds used: Hard / Super soft / Wet /Intermediate

Temperatures 	 Ambient   Track 	Weather
AM - Practice 1  19C-20C   20C-21C 	Rain / cloudy
PM - Practice 2  21C 	   22C-21C-23C  Cloudy / drizzle / cloudy