Alonso tops first dry practice at Spa

F1 Grand Prix, GP Belgium, Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

Fernando Alonso went fastest in FP3, the first practice session of the year at Spa-Francorchamps to be held in dry conditions. In a busy session which teams used to make up for the lost time from Friday, Kimi Räikkönen posted the second fastest time while the Sauber cars were 3rd and 4th.

Following difficult weather circumstances during both Friday practices, everybody is eager to go out early and complete a considerable number of laps to get the dry weather set-up right. Both Sauber cars were the first ones on track, but in the pitlane queue also the Marussia cars, Lotus and of course followed by many others who stated the session with a banker lap.

Nico Rosberg however immediately started a long stint but after 13 minutes had to park his car with an apparent gearbox problem. The engine didn't turn off but he lost drive and stopped alongside the circuit, quite distant from the pitlane.

Massa is also out early, having hardly completed a lap in FP1 as an engine problem cut an already difficult session short for him. The engine that failed was a high mileage engine that was only used on Fridays any more.

From the first men on track, Bruno Senna took the early lead. Vettel, Hamilton and Button also lapped a lot early on but were clearly not focusing on laptime at that point. 25 minutes into the session, Alonso got on track and went fastest, followed on track by Massa who immediately set the second fastest time, a tenth off his teammate.

Later on the Sauber cars took charge of the session, ahead of Vettel and Webber. Ferrari mixed in between towards the end of the session, but at all times, the Scuderia cars lose out considerably in the second sector, marked by a series of medium to high speed corners.

McLaren, and especially Lewis Hamilton on the other hand lost out in every single sector and were off the pace. Kimi Räikkonen put in the second fastest time with consistent times throughout the entire 7km lap.