It’s underway! 2008 F1 season is on in Australia.

The first free practice was held today in Melbourne and guess what, [tag]Kimi Raikkonen[/tag] showed everyone he’s going to be tough to beat by finishing tops on the time sheets.

For a while it seemed like [tag]Lewis Hamilton[/tag] would take the top spot as he led for most of the session, but as time was winding down, Kimi showed who was boss today by taking top spot from Lewis by almost a half a second. Not bad.

[tag]Felipe Massa[/tag] looked good and had a chance at Hamilton’s leading time until the dreaded traffic slowed him down and he finished with the 3rd best time behind Raikkonen and Hamilton. Looks like Massa means business too. It is only the first practice session in steamy hot Melbourne, but the [tag]Ferrari[/tag]’s look good.

Not to be left out was [tag]Heikki Kovalainen[/tag] who almost topped Massa, but in the end finished 4th fastest on the day over a half second back of Raikkonen.

We’re going to have a good battle here.

[tag]Nick Heidfeld[/tag] had a dismal practice when his day went into the pot with an electrical problem leaving him with the 16th fastest time over 3 seconds back. It was [tag]Robert Kubica[/tag] who took top honors for [tag]BMW-Sauber[/tag] with a 7th place finish. It does appear that BMW-Sauber will start the season using their new and radical ‘front antlers’.

It was [tag]Red Bull[/tag]’s [tag]Mark Webber[/tag] just edging out [tag]Fernando Alonso[/tag] for 5th place with a stellar late lap. Of Course Mark Webber is pretty good in qualifying so I see these places reversed in the race.

Was Fernando Alonso a little too excited to get going? He took his [tag]Renault[/tag] through the gravel trap twice before finishing nearly 2 full seconds behind Raikkonen.

For [tag]Honda[/tag], it was [tag]Jenson Button[/tag] who showed pretty well just being edged out of the top 10 by [tag]Jarno trulli[/tag] of [tag]Toyota[/tag] and just ahead of [tag]Giancarlo Fisichella[/tag] of [tag]Force India[/tag]. This is a good result on the first day for Button and maybe, just maybe Honda will surprise us with better pace than in pre-season testing. Must be the emerald green shorts the crew are wearing. :)

The unfortunates in this session were [tag]David Coulthard[/tag] who had to stop with an oil pressure problem, [tag]Nick Heidfeld[/tag] who parked on track after an hour with an electrical problem, and [tag]Nico Rosberg[/tag] who had a nap :) in the garage while the [tag]Williams[/tag] mechanics dealt with a gearbox problem. Not only that, but [tag]Kazuki Nakajima[/tag] suffered the same gearbox problem and between them both they managed 3 laps. I have to give the booby prize so far to Williams. Better luck later guys.

We can’t get too excited just yet as this was only the first practice session of the year and teams were on a very green track and just trying to gett the setups right and making sure all systems were go.

Here is the listing of times.

1. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m26.461s
2. HAMILTON McLaren 1m26.948s
3. MASSA Ferrari 1m26.958s
4. KOVALAINEN McLaren 1m27.114s
5. WEBBER Red Bull 1m28.263s
6. ALONSO Renault 1m28.360s
7. KUBICA BMW 1m28.579s
8. GLOCK Toyota 1m28.913s
9. VETTEL Toro Rosso 1m28.957s
10. TRULLI Toyota 1m29.014s
11. BUTTON Honda 1m29.124s
12. FISICHELLA Force India 1m29.230s
13. COULTHARD Red Bull 1m29.301s
14. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso 1m29.363s
15. BARRICHELLO Honda 1m29.533s
16. HEIDFELD BMW 1m29.561s
17. SUTIL Force India 1m30.155s
18. PIQUET Renault 1m30.357s
19. SATO Super Aguri 1m31.048s
20. DAVIDSON Super Aguri 1m31.771s
21. NAKAJIMA Williams 1m35.053s
22. ROSBERG Williams no time

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