F1: Malaysia Friday practice shows relative pace of new teams

Yesterday morning, Lotus took the chance to bring their Malaysian driver Fairus Fauzy out for a run, his first on a grand prix weekend.

And unlike up at the pointy end, the new teams are all focussed on the same thing: spending as much time as possible in the car getting used to it and seeing if it goes a) in a straight line and b) around corners.

The prime variable between the teams in the first two races has been the drivers: obviously, Trulli and Kovalainen are the most experienced, Glock also has decent F1 experience. But Lucas diGrassi, Chandok and Senna are all totally new to Formula One.

But Lotus' decision to put Fairus in the car on Friday morning provided a direct comparison between the cars: in fact, putting Lotus at a slight disadvantage as Fairus hasn't been in the car since pre-season testing, although to a degree "home town" advantage helps mitigate that.

Here's the result for new drivers in new cars in the first practice session yesterday:

DiGrassi , Virgin, 21st , 1:40.159

Fairus, Lotus, 22nd, 1:40.721

Senna, HRT, 23rd, 1:41.832

Chandok, HRT, 24th, 1:41.966

Relative to the established teams, the high-speed Sepang track emphasised the difference: Hamilton was fasted in the same session. His time, 1:34.921.

And new driver in old team Petrov was 14th with 1:36.712.

The established teams will be increasing their pace significantly over the weekend.

The current lap record is held by Jenson Button in his second race with Brawn, last year at1:33.789. His pole time was 1:35.181.