2011 F1 Championship: Mark Webber goes fastest in F1 first Practice while Indian drivers Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandhok have a bad day!

Mark Webber in a Red Bull-Renault at the 2011 Australian F1 Grand Prix First Practice

The F1 season is now officially go as the first practice session at Melbourne saw Redbull-Renault driver and home hero Mark Webber go fastest around the Formula1 Circuit at Australia. Webber put in 20 blistering laps to en up with a best lap timing of 1M 26.831S while team mate and reigning world champion, Sebastian Vettel went second fastest with 1M27.158S.

Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso managed third fastest while Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes outpaced team mate Michael Schumacher, who himself could manage only eight place, to end up in fourth place. Rubens Barrichello made a surprise entry for Williams-Cosworth in fifth place while the two Mclarens of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton managed sixth and seventh places respectively.

The Indian drivers Narain Karthikeyan who is driving for the Hispania Racing Team and Karun Chandhok who is a reserve driver for Team Lotus, both had a bad day on the track. While Karun Chandhok, in a Lotus-Cosworth managed a timing of 1M 30.695S on his solitary lap before spinning out in the pit lane with cold tyres, Narain Karthikeyan didn’t even take to the track as his car was not yet ready for action.

The Force India cars managed 13th and 18th fastest times, with Adrian Sutil and Nico Hulkenberg driving in the respective positions. Watch this space as we bring you more Formula1 action as and when it unfolds over this weekend, straight from the 2011 Australian Grand Prix. Meanwhile, here’s a detailed time sheet.

Position	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1m26.831s +	20
2.	Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1m27.158s + 0.327	19
3.	Alonso	Ferrari	1m27.749s + 0.918	20
4.	Rosberg	Mercedes	1m28.152s + 1.321	16
5.	Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1m28.430s + 1.599	24
6	Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1m28.440s + 1.609	29
7	Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1m28.483s + 1.652	26
8	Schumacher	Mercedes	1m28.690s + 1.859	14
9	Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1m28.725s+ 1.894	13
10	Petrov	Renault	1m28.765s + 1.93	15
11	Massa	Ferrari	1m28.842s + 2.011	20
12	Heidfled	Renault	1m28.928s + 2.097	14
13	Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1m29.314s + 2.483	19
14	Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1m29.328s + 2.497	21
15	Maldonado	Williams-Cosworth	1m29.403s + 2.572	24
16	Ricciardo	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1m29.468s + 2.637	23
17	Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	1m29.643s + 2.812	18
18	Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1m31.002s + 4.171	20
19	Kovalainen	Lotus-Cosworth	1m32.428s + 5.597	13
20	d’Ambrosio	Virgin-Cosworth	1m35.282s + 8.451	17
21	Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	1m35.289s + 8.458	15
22	Chandhok	Lotus-Cosworth	1:30.695 + 4.894	1
23	Liuzzi	HRT-Cosworth	No Time
24	Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	No Time