Alonso Tops Rainy P1 Session at Spa

Fernando Alonso told his team to be optimistic of a great result at Spa-Francorchamps, and he had all the reasons in the world to do that, as the Spaniard demolished his competition during the rainy first practice session of the Belgian Grand Prix, on Friday morning. Of course, it's too early to tell if this is proof enough that Ferrari will be in the front for the entire weekend, but they sure enjoyed a heck of a start.

With heavy rain pouring down the Spa-Francorchamps circuit throughout the morning session – except for the last 15 minutes – the drivers did not get a chance to test their dry-weather set-ups. Instead, they ran on wet tires and scored lap times in the vicinity of 2 minutes.

After spending the first half of the session behind Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, Alonso finally got on top of the timing charts with the best time of 2:01.223. As the water on the track started to disappear – after the first 20 minutes, running conditions were very poor, with some portions of the circuit witnessing standing water – Alonso decided to push his car to the limits once again in the final minutes of P1 and stopped the clock at 2:00.797.

Second overall was McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, who ended P1 some 0.770 seconds behind the Spaniard. Renault's Robert Kubica completed the Top 3 with a late run on his improved R30, ending the session more than half of second behind Ham.

Sebastian Vettel had to settle for the 4th fastest time, while followed by rain specialist Adrian Sutil (Force India). From Sutil on, all drivers completed the Friday morning action at Spa more than 2 seconds off Alonso's pace, Jenson Button and Mark Webber finishing in 6th and 7th respectively. Kamui Kobayashi scored a late flying lap good enough for 8th place, ahead of Williams' Rubens Barrichello and Mercedes' Michael Schumacher.

McLaren's duo Lewis Hamilton (7) and Jenson Button (6), Rubens Barrichello (7), Michael Schumacher (9), Nico Rosberg (6) and Sebastien Buemi (6) were the only drivers to complete less than 10 laps on the Spa circuit this morning.

Following the P1's final flag, some of the drivers avoided going immediately to the pits, staying on the track to practice race starts in rainy conditions. According to the weather data on the scene, it's likely that the afternoon practice will also be affected by rain, so there's a good chance we won't get to see much action on dry tires today.