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Hamilton Crashes at Suzuka in P1

The first practice session of the Japanese Grand Prix on Friday provided the first crash of the weekend at Suzuka. Unfortunately, it happened to McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, the very man who missed out on scoring points in back-to-back races prior to the Japanese event for the same reason: too much aggressiveness.

This time, his mistake was a typical Degner incident, as the McLaren driver ran wide in the corner and hit the barriers on the other side of the gravel trap. While the incident did cause severe damage to his MP4-25, it also kept the Briton out of action for the majority of the 90-minute session.

And that's important because getting his share of dry running could not be as easy in the sessions to come, as rain is expected at Suzuka starting tomorrow.

Nevertheless, the incident caused much more damage in terms of Hamilton's image in the international media, as it comes only a day after the 25-year old Brit insisted he will not change his aggressive approach on the title in the 4 races remaining this year. Although losing a bunch of points because of stupid mistakes in Monza and Singapore, Ham had told the reporters on Thursday that he will continue to push to the limits race after race.

If you are walking down the street and you keep tripping over the sole of your shoe because it keeps flapping, then you change your shoe. I haven't got anything that is flapping off,” said the 2008 F1 champion on Thursday.

In the meantime, Red Bull duo Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber lived up to the pre-race expectations and comfortably topped the first 90 minutes of practice at Suzuka, a circuit where the two RB6s are believed to be favorites by far. Despite his bad luck after 9 laps, Hamilton managed to score the 5th fastest time of the morning, while the other title favorites Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso settled for 12th and 13th place.
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