The majority of the field was out by the time the session was just five minutes old. McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton set a benchmark of 1 minute 17.517 seconds that he set just seven six minutes into the session, until teammate Heikki Kovalainen achieved a time three tenths of a second faster than him. Kimi Raikkonen tried to knock his fellow countryman off the top spot, to fail and end up in 2nd position after fifteen minutes of the session.

Red Bull’s David Coulthard looked very strong in the early part of the session, the Scot set the fastest sector time of anyone in sector 1, only to be beaten by Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, just half a minute later, Felipe went on set third fastest lap time, as his teammate went to the front 15 minutes into the session, with a 1 minute 16.558.

BMW’s Nick Heidfeld was seen with intermediate tyres on his BMW in the pits. The mechanics wheeled his car back into the pits, where he complained that the car didn’t feel good, not a good sign for the German, especially since there’s rumours circulating the paddock that he’s going to be thrown out of BMW in the future.

First incident of the practice session went to Jarno Trulli who spun his Toyota going out of turn four, that brought out the yellow flag, while Trulli regained his composure and set of around the track again.

With fifty three minutes of the session left, McLaren were 4th and 5th. Meanwhile Nelson Piquet Jr’s car stopped in the pit lane entrance, with his breaks smoking. Replays showed he missed the chicane and darted into the pits.

His team-mate didn’t fair any better, Fernando Alonso managed to spin his Renault on the exit of turn two bringing out the yellow flags for four minutes while the marshals cleared his stricken car.

Toyota’s Timo Glock was the second driver to stop out on circuit, the young German clipped the barrier on the exit or turn four, just like Fernando Alonso did in 2005. Glock’s accident caused the session to be yellow flagged for a few minutes as the TF108, with broken rear suspension was moved off the circuit.

Even a big championship contender like Ferrari couldn’t escape without a problem during the second practise, Felipe Massa’s car exited the hairpin at the end of the circuit, and came to a halt, the cause of which is unknown at the present time. Due to this, the session was yellow flagged for a third time.

Lewis Hamilton managed to achieve the fastest lap time, setting a personal best in sector one- still three hundredths of a second slower than Kubica’s BMW, and two fastest sector times in sector 2 and 3, put him on top of the timesheets with just under 7 minutes to go. McLaren look to be running lower downforce than their main competitors.

Hamilton held onto that lead for the remainder of the session, although, Robert Kubica in the BMW F1.08 and Kimi Raikkonen in the F2008 were his main competitors, Heikki Kovalainen couldn’t do much to stop either of the top three, he finished half a second behind his teammate. The whole field was separated by just 2.3 seconds.

Times are shown below

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