Hamilton scored the best lap time of 1:28.653 shortly before the one-hour mark, positioning himself almost a full second head of the field. Button scored the best time of the day, as he was unable to match the pace of his younger teammate, recording a time 0.962 seconds slower than Hamilton's. The Top 3 was completed by Mercedes GP's Michael Schumacher, who managed to top his teammate Nico Rosberg once again by 0.105 seconds.
Red Bull's much-expected domination in Istanbul did not happen in the first practice session, as Sebastian Vettel – whose car was fitted with the new F-duct system put in place by his team – only scored the 5th best time of the day, more than 1.2 seconds off the pace. He was followed by Renault's Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov, while teammate Mark Webber had to settle for 8th place.
It's worth mentioning that Webber's car was not fitted with the F-duct system, as Red Bull was trying to compare notes and data on the new unit. The Top 10 was completed by Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Force India's Adrian Sutil.
The German did not get to cross the finish line of the P1 on Friday, as he severely damaged his Force India car in a late attempt to climb up the classification. With only a couple of minutes to go, Sutil lost control of his VJM03 and crashed into the barriers, causing a yellow flag around the Turn 8 section.
While some drivers experienced a few issues in the same turn – due to the dirty track and the lack of grip on the rubber-less surface – it was Turn 1 that saw more drivers making some run-off visits, such as Vettel, Kubica or STR's Sebastien Buemi.
Apart from Sutil, HRT F1's Karun Chandhok was the only driver to experience problems with his car – throttle related – some 40 minutes into the session, causing him to crawl back to the pits with an average speed of 33 km/h (20 mph).
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