Free Practice got off to a difficult and late start when it emerged that the kerbing at turns 3 and 14 was loose and had to be removed. With a thirty minute delay before the session began, teams had to reorganise their programmes to fit just an hour's worth of running instead. We saw a brief coming together of Mark Webber and Timo Glock, as the Red Bull driver got frustrated sitting behind the slower Virgin car. Heikki Kovalainen caused a red flag when his Lotus caught fire, but he hopped from the car unharmed. There was another red flag when another kerb came loose, and after all that, it was Lewis Hamilton who topped the timesheets.