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Vettel Takes Opening Practices In Australia

MELBOURNE, Australia- Starting out where he had
previously left off last year, Sebastian Vettel took both of the 2013 Formula
One opening practices Friday at Albert Park with an indication that the Red
Bull he is driving can still be a contender this season.

The defending world champion opened the 2013 year
with a 1:27:211 first session that was actually a tenth of a second clear from
second place Felipe Massa in his Ferrari.

The track as to be expected was extremely slippery
due to the fact that it has never been used much, and this made many drivers in
this session, especially the Caterhams and the Marussia cars wait for half an
hour because of a fear of over wearing their limited supply of stock tires on
such a dirty track.

With only a half hour left in the opening session, the
pair of Red Bulls, Ferraris and Mercedes along with Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus all
were split by only a second between each other. However, the big shock was the
absence of the McLaren duo of Jenson Button and Sergio Perez, who were way down
in ninth and 11th positions, respectively. Force India’s Paul Di
resta slid off the track near the end of the session at turn six after putting
one of his wheels on the grass, while Massa ran wide on the same section,
trying to look for the limit of his car on the fast right hander.

While Vettel managed to record a decent enough time
in the opening session, the second became even better for the German as he
topped the timesheets with an even more impressive 1:25:908 with Mark Webber in
second 0.264 seconds behind. Nico Rosberg set the third best time of the day
considering his car ended the day early by suffering a gearbox issue. For his
teammate Lewis Hamilton, the day went even worse as the Englishman ran his
Mercedes straight into the gravel at the now famous turn six. But Red Bull,
considering their dominance, did not have everything go their way. Vettel
reported a loss of KERS at one stage of his hot lap, while Webber spun at turn
13 on worn medium tires. Another driver who beached his car was Caterham driver
Guido Van De Garde, who accomplished this right at the beginning of the
session.

Lotus drivers had a very quiet two sessions, with
Raikkonen finishing fourth and teammate Romain Grosjean taking fifth. Ferrari
only had Fernando Alonso finish only as high as sixth in the second session.
Although most of the teams are satisfied with their
early performances, it will take tomorrow’s qualifying session to determine
whether or not their cars have had all the winter testing necessary for better
results.

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