The 17th and final race weekend of the season has, in terms of lap times at least, delivered the usual story of a duel between Ferrari and McLaren. Friday’s practice also followed a more recent trend, initiated two races ago in Japan, in the shape of rain, which fell during the morning session and left the track still damp at the start of this afternoon's 90 minutes of free practice.

Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa only did 9 and 10 laps respectively in the first session, enough to top the time sheets and then in the afternoon, it was series leader Lewis Hamilton who was quickest, with Fernando Alonso second. Then came last year's winner here, Felipe, whose every move in the paddock is followed by hordes of Brazilian media, guests and fans, eager to keep up with everything their local boy is doing. Kimi was fourth and both Ferrari men did 30 laps each.

In fifth position, is another previous Brazil GP winner in the shape of Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella, with the BMW-Sauber of Robert Kubica completing the top six. The new track surface appears to be providing more grip than in the past, which complicates matters in terms of tyre choice, and there has been a slight improvement in that the bumps, although still present on this fascinating track, are not as severe as last year.

One interesting situation arose in the morning session in that Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Takuma Sato all used two sets of wet weather tyres, which is against the rules. At the time of writing, there is no news of any penalty that might be imposed on these drivers or their teams.

If the weather forecast is to be believed, then we have seen the last of the wet weather for this weekend, but nothing is more uncertain than the weather in this city at this time of year.

It’s no surprise that Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton are at the top of the leaderboard after Friday’s practice. After all, these two are the top contenders for the championship this season. “The session this afternoon was far better than this morning. We did not expect it to stay wet for the rest of the weekend so took the decision not to do any running in the morning as we wouldn’t achieve any conclusive results on set-up and tyre comparison work,” said Alonso who was second-fastest in the second session of practice.

The first session, though, saw Ferrari lead the way with Renault and Williams coming in close in third and fourth. McLaren was languishing in fifth and beyond. But all of that fell into place in the second session. For both Ferrari and McLaren, there is now the added threat of an upset thanks to fickle and changing weather and a new track. As Nico Rosberg put it, “It was a pretty good day for us, especially in the wet, but you always need to be careful with Friday’s times. We didn’t show our true potential, but that’s probably the same for everyone today. We had a dry track in the afternoon and we now know that the tyre choice is going to be difficult. We tried a few directions on the set-up; we didn’t get it quite perfect, but we know how to get it right for tomorrow’s qualifying.” Sounds like a challenge?

Kimi Raikkonen, still nursing an outside hope of winning the title is yet non-committal. "As usual on Friday, it is difficult to understand exactly where we stand compared to the others. That was probably even more the case today given the track conditions. This morning in the wet, we just checked that the car was okay and then in the afternoon, especially the first part of the session, the track still had some damp patches. Then, when conditions improved, we came up against a bit of traffic. We are reasonably happy with the way today went, but there is still a lot of room for improvement on the car,” said the Finn. He’s still a dark horse but he’s a real threat.

Lewis Hamilton, the last time he would race on a track for the first time (excluding the new tracks to be added!), was excited about his prospects for the race. "I enjoyed finally getting out on this amazing track, it was just a shame that the conditions were not great this morning, and we couldn’t really do as much running as we would have preferred. However, it was good to get a feel for the track, and we made reasonable progress on the set-up work and tyre comparison despite the cold conditions," said the favourite for the title.

The third session of practice on Saturday and qualifying will give a good glimpse into what Sunday will offer. But like with the Chinese GP, this can be seen with no certainty at all. Strange things have been happening all season long!

 

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