McLaren's Lewis Hamilton needed less than an hour of the first free practice session for the Malaysian Grand Prix Friday to show that he will be the man to beat in this weekend's race. The 2008 world champion scorched to the fastest time of the 90-minute session on a glorious sunny morning south of the Malaysian capital, clocking one minute, 38.021 seconds to beat the rest of the field by more than half a second. As the afternoon forecast for heavy rain failed to materialize, the Briton topped the timesheets again in a marginally slower time with McLaren and Mercedes primed to battle it out for pole as Red Bull and Ferrari struggled for pace. “The car's been quite good. Made some set-up changes which I'm much happier with and now just focusing on the long run pace,” Hamilton told reporters. World champion Sebastian Vettel was second fastest in the morning with a time of 1:38.535, just ahead of the Mercedes pair Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher, who were separated by just 13 hundreths of a second. However, Vettel complained over the team radio that his Red Bull “was all over the place” as he toiled in the afternoon heat and could only set the 10th fastest time, more than a second behind Hamilton. The drivers used both sessions to gauge tire degradation around the demanding Sepang circuit and with times slowing by around a second after 10 laps, pit stop strategy for Sunday's race will be a key factor in determining the eventual winner. “Well this track obviously you've got two very long straights so overtaking is probably a little bit more possible than in the last race but still, starting from the front is a much better position to be in and so that's what I'm going for,” Hamilton added. McLaren locked up the front row in the season-opening race in Melbourne last week, with Hamilton's teammate Jenson Button going on to win comfortably, but the Briton had a far bumpier ride in the morning before picking up his pace later on. The 2009 world champion, who won at the circuit in the same year, struggled with an oil leak that limited his session to just 15 laps in which he could only post the ninth-fasted time, 1.302 seconds behind his team mate. With his McLaren patched up for the second 90-minute spell, Button was third quickest, splitting Schumacher and Rosberg, who were once again very well matched around the 5.543km circuit. Romain Grosjean proved his third place on the grid in Australia was no fluke with another strong showing in his Lotus, the Frenchman overcoming early problems with his rear wing to clock the fifth-fastest time in the morning.
