page_title: 2012 Australian Grand Prix
section_title: Free practice
hierarchical_section_title: 2012 Australian Grand Prix / Report / Free practice
caption_attribution_description: Português: 2012 Australian Grand Prix — Felipe Massa
context_page_description: The 2012 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 18 March 2012 as the opening round of the 2012 Formula One season. It was the 77th race in the combined history of the Australian Grand Prix that dates back to the 100 Miles Road Race of 1928, and the 17th time the event has been held at the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit at Albert Park.
  The 58-lap race was won by McLaren driver Jenson Button who took his third victory at the Albert Park Circuit. Reigning double World Champion Sebastian Vettel, driving for Red Bull Racing, finished in second place, while polesitter and Button's McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton completed the podium.
  Australian Mark Webber was fourth, his best result in his home Grand Prix. Webber's fourth place was the best finish by an Australian in an Australian Grand Prix since Alfredo Costanzo finished fourth in 1984, the last time the race was run under Australian domestic rules before becoming a round of the World Championship in 1985.
context_section_description: The first hour of the first practice session saw very little running, as the circuit was considered too wet for slick tyres, but too dry for intermediates. Consequently, most drivers only completed installation laps in the first hour, before emerging later in the session once a dry line began to appear. Kamui Kobayashi and the Mercedes pair of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher set the pace, which was briefly interrupted by Karthikeyan's HRT cutting out on the approach to Turn 13, the engine automatically shutting itself off when the oil overheated. With de la Rosa's car not yet ready to take to the circuit, HRT finished the session without recording a single lap time. On his return to Formula One, Kimi Räikkönen experienced technical problems that limited him to just eight laps — later described by team personnel as making adjustments to the steering rack — while Felipe Massa spun out at Turn 9. Jenson Button finished the session fastest, with a late lap from Lewis Hamilton enough for second, and Schumacher half a second slower in third. Reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel ultimately finished the session eleventh overall.
  Rain between the first and second session meant that the circuit was declared wet at the start of the second Friday session, with the water washing away the rubber than had been laid down by the first session and support events. The Scuderia Toro Rosso drivers were the first out, gathering data on the performance on wet tyres. A dry line began to appear after forty minutes, and it was Sergio Pérez who set the first representative time of the day. The final fifteen minutes of the session were dominated by drivers running on the soft tyres, with Michael Schumacher besting Nico Hülkenberg's fastest time by one tenth of a second on his final lap. Several drivers, including Heikki Kovalainen, Mark Webber and Pastor Maldonado went off the circuit, but the session passed without interruption. Kamui Kobayashi spun at the final corner and narrowly avoided the wall, whilst Narain Karthikeyan once again came to a halt on the circuit, this time at Turn 6 after the session had ended. With the team having successfully completed his car in time for the second session, Pedro de la Rosa was further paralysed by hydraulics issues.
  The third session was warm and sunny (21ᵒC air temp, 29ᵒC track temp) and stayed much the same for the remainder of the weekend, allowing for significant running by all teams. Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher were once again the early leaders before Romain Grosjean set the fastest time in the final twenty minutes, only to be surpassed by Lewis Hamilton in the final minute. There was much attention given to Red Bull Racing, following team principal Christian Horner's claims that the team had not done any qualifying simulations. Their plans were thrown into disarray when Sebastian Vettel spun off at Turn 5 shortly after switching to soft tyres, and Mark Webber's fastest lap was ruined when Michael Schumacher spun off at Turn 9. Pedro de la Rosa managed to set his first timed lap of the weekend, but was forced to return to the pits with power steering problems. Projected lap times at the end of the session suggested that HRT would fail to qualify for the race for the second consecutive year.
caption: Felipe Massa was one of the drivers to spin into the gravel during the free practice sessions
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3100", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2012:03:20 21:39:40", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "928", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "13957", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "71/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Shutter Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:03:16 12:30:51", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:03:16 12:30:51", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1165241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2827819/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "4294967295", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "200", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "90", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "90", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "300", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "8151098", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[70, 200, 14/5, 14/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8"}