Lewis Hamilton was only eleventh, setting a fastest time of 1.36.515 (30 laps) while Australian GP winner Jenson Button was seventh with 1.36.254 and 31 laps.
Kimi Raikkonen said that the car performed pretty well, despite a few problems with the KERS in the morning.
“This morning we had a problem with the KERS, which cost us a bit of time, but we managed to make up for most of it in the afternoon. We had felt that the situation here could be different to Melbourne, but it is still too early to say where we are up against the opposition. What we can be sure of is that when the car runs trouble-free, we are competitive. We hope we can do a good job in tomorrow’s qualifying.”
Furthermore, Massa says Ferrari expects to do fairly better compared to Australia, especially because the whole team is extremely motivated to improve its performances.
“The situation seems different compared to Australia, at least in terms of how the tyres operate. There is more grip and the softer tyres work well, even over a long distance. At the start of the long runs, I had a bit of understeer in the high speed corners and oversteer in the slow ones, but towards the end, the handling of the car improved continuously and I could set some great times."
Here are the top six drivers after the Friday practice session:
| 1 | Kimi Räikkönen | Ferrari | 1:35.707 | 40 | |
| 2 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1:35.832 | 0.125 | 38 |
| 3 | Sebastian Vettel | RBR-Renault | 1:35.954 | 0.247 | 40 |
| 4 | Nico Rosberg | Williams-Toyota | 1:36.015 | 0.308 | 39 |
| 5 | Mark Webber | RBR-Renault | 1:36.026 | 0.319 | 37 |
| 6 | Rubens Barrichello | Brawn-Mercedes | 1:36.161 | 0.454 | 36 |
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