Friday Practice Overview

Source: Guardian

Triple World Champion, Sebastian Vettel headed both time sheets for Friday practice and is now looking to secure the first pole position of 2013.

The Red Bull team completed a 'perfect' Friday as they locked out the top two slots, Australian, Mark Webber finishing the day in second position to his team-mate.

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton continued to impress for Mercedes finishing 3rd and 7th, respectively.

Early tips indicated that Lotus had come to Melbourne with a strong package and they weren't wrong. Both Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean finished in the top 5 and if last years' form is anything to go by, they will be hoping for hot race conditions.

Source: F1 Race.it

Ferraris, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa concentrated on longer runs during second practice and finished 6th and 8th.

Team principal Stefano Dominecalli expects the front-runners to remain similar to last years final race in Brazil, he said: “For many reasons, however, it can be considered an important test bench to establish the state of play. I expect that the teams who finished in the top positions in Sao Paulo will repeat that in Melbourne, probably with a reduced advantage – that’s what we are all hoping for, anyway.”

One team who have endured a difficult first day are Mclaren. The Woking based team have struggled so far having confessed 'radical' designs for their 2013 contender. A fairly despondent Jenson Button said: "I think we have quite a few weaknesses with the car, ride is a lot worse than we expected, we have been trying to improve but we haven't really found a direction yet."

His team-mate, Sergio Perez also described the car as "Unpredictable and difficult to drive," whilst they appeared to be off the pace at a pre season test in Jerez, they seem to be in a similar position for this weekend and admitted they would be thrilled to reach the top ten shootout.

Adrian Sutil marked his return to a Formula One weekend with a 9th place finish with, Scot, Paul Di Resta finishing 12th.

Nico Hulkenberg who elected to leave Force India for Sauber finished the day in 10th place with his rookie team mate, Esteban Gutierrez down in 15th.

Torro Rosso made an impressive start to the Friday sessions but once the front runners started to put in competitive times they found themselves lower down the time sheets than they wanted to be. Danie Ricciardo completed 31 laps and finished 15th, team-mate Vergne, finished two tenths down in 17th.

Source: blog.bettor

No team completed more laps than the Williams F1 team on Friday who completed a combined 75 laps between their drivers. Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas finished the day 16th and 18th respectively.

Newcomer Jules Bianchi continued his fine form finishing ahead of his team-mate and both Caterhams' he finished half a second quicker than Caterhams Charles Pic and almost a second quicker than Max Chilton.

Caterham appear to have fallen behind Marussia at the rear end of the grid, Charles Pic headed, Giedo van der Garde who is yet to run on the softer compound tyre.

Al is set up for qualifying now with rumours of rain rife in the paddock, can anyone stop Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull?