Alonso, a three-time winner here, finished just 0.077secs adrift, with
Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg the best of the challengers to the Ferrari pair as
the German was 0.134secs adrift of Massa.
With Rosberg and team-mate Lewis Hamilton clearly running different
strategies, the Briton – third in his last two races – was down in 13th
position, 1.305secs off the pace.
Triple world champion Sebastian Vettel, who again leads this year’s
championship by three points to Lotus’ Kimi Raikkonen, was fourth on the
timesheet, three tenths of a second down.
Force India, who performed well at this circuit last year and with a car that
seemingly likes the heat, had Paul Di Resta and Adrian Sutil in fifth and
eighth positions, with the former half a second back.
In between were McLaren’s Jenson Button and Red Bull’s Mark Webber, the latter
starting Sunday’s race with a three-place grid penalty after a collision
with Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne in Shanghai.
The Lotus duo of Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean completed the top 10, with the
latter just over a second down.
Heikki Kovalainen, back with Caterham this week in a reserve and technical
development role after being dropped by the team at the end of last season,
was 20th, 3.9secs behind Massa, and 0.6secs adrift of team-mate Charles Pic.
Kovalainen later claimed the Caterham is much harder to drive than last year.
For once, it was the Marussia pair at the back of the field, with Max Chilton
five seconds off the pace, whilst reserve Rodolfo Gonzalez was a further
0.8secs behind.
First practice:
1 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1min 34.487secs
2 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:34.564
3 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes 1:34.621
4 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1:34.790
5 Paul Di Resta (Gbr) Force India 1:34.949
6 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren 1:35.069
7 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:35.101
8 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India 1:35.119
9 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Lotus 1:35.345
10 Romain Grosjean (Fra) Lotus 1:35.611
11 Sergio Perez (Mex) McLaren 1:35.640
12 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Williams 1:35.783
13 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) Mercedes 1:35.792
14 Jean-Eric Vergne (Fra) Toro Rosso 1:36.014
15 Daniel Ricciardo (Aus) Toro Rosso 1:36.485
16 Pastor Maldonado (Ven) Williams 1:36.498
17 Nico Hulkenberg (Ger) Sauber 1:36.755
18 Esteban Gutierrez (Mex) Sauber 1:37.214
19 Charles Pic (Fra) Caterham 1:37.850
20 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Caterham 1:38.401
21 Max Chilton (Gbr) Marussia 1:39.445
22 Rodolfo Gonzalez (Ven) Marussia 1:40.215
(Edited by Giles Mole)