Clearly, after the first day of practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix, it is going to be close between McLaren and Ferrari for the rest of the weekend. That is an obvious conclusion to a day that saw several teams running light to achieve apparently promising times.

Generally, the new surface at Sepang required some rethinking on set-up, but most drivers seemed content with the balance they achieved on Bridgestone’s hard and medium tyres; the major problem for some was in getting the best out of them over a single lap, ready for qualifying.

McLaren
Lewis Hamilton, 1m 36.626s, P5/1m 35.055s, P1
Heikki Kovalainen, 1m 36.556s, P3/1m 36.512s, P7
McLaren did not rise to the bait this morning as Ferrari set the pace, and for most of the afternoon the red cars continued to rule. But then Hamilton put on the softer tyres and got going for lap times. He was happy with his MP4-23’s consistent pace. His only real problem was with the gear selection at the end of the morning session, but it did not require a change of unit as was first thought. Kovalainen was the faster runner in the morning, and felt he had made a steady start to his weekend as he made progress with chassis set-up.

Ferrari
Felipe Massa, 1m 35.392s, P1/1m 35.206s, P2
Kimi Raikkonen, 1m 36.459s, P2/1m 35.428s, P3
Ferrari set the pace all morning, and for most of the afternoon. Massa was fastest in the former, after Raikkonen rolled to a halt after a misunderstanding over fuel load saw him run short. Both drivers said they were happy with the F2008’s performance over a lap on both tyre compounds, though Massa reported that he could not get the best out of his second set of soft tyres in the afternoon when he was upstaged by Hamilton.

Malaysia 0300EST Sunday.