Kovalainen leads F1 practice for Turkish GP

McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen was fastest in practice Friday for the Turkish Grand Prix, while Brawn GP's uncharacteristic lack of pace could give its rivals a strong chance of putting the brakes on the leader's dominant start.

The Finnish driver set a fastest lap of 1 minute, 28.841 seconds across both practice sessions to edge Renault's Fernando Alonso by 0.006 seconds.

Williams driver Nico Rosberg was the only other driver to finish under the 1:29 mark, while BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica and Kazuki Nakajima of Williams rounded out the top five.

Formula One leader Jenson Button of Brawn GP had a best lap of 1:29.430 - more than half a second off Kovalainen's pace.

Button has won five of the season's first six races to lead the overall standings with 51 points. Teammate Rubens Barrichello, who was slightly faster than Button, is second with 35 points followed by Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel - the season's only other race winner - on 23.

"Unfortunately, (we) could not get the car to where I want it to be and struggled with a lack of grip," Button said. "I'm hopeful that we can resolve today's issues and have a better day tomorrow."

Barrichello said there was still a lot of work to be done, especially to get a better grip in the first section, where uncertain tire selection left cars struggling on the dirty track.

"We don't look that competitive at the moment, however, it is still early in the weekend and depends on the programs and fuel levels that our competitors are running," the Brazilian said. "There is a lot of work for us to achieve, particularly in the first sector."

Red Bull and Ferrari, coming off a 3-4 finish at Monaco, felt confident of challenging the British team in Sunday's 58-lap race at Istanbul Park Circuit, where Felipe Massa is looking to win for the fourth straight year. Teammate Kimi Raikkonen won in 2005.

"I think we are going in the right direction," Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said after his drivers each finished over five-tenths of a second back.

Vettel had an engine problem that limited him to only four laps in the second practice session.

"I felt a vibration during the second session, so stopped the car as it didn't look very good," Vettel said. "I'll be relying on (teammate Mark Webber's) data from today. Having one car running on Friday isn't ideal."

Teams arrived at Istanbul with a variety of aerodynamic upgrades for the high-speed track, which offered a significant change to the narrow street course at the preceding Monaco GP.

McLaren also showed promise.

"It's better like this than being at the other end of the list," Kovalainen said. "The most important thing is that the car is working fine and the balance is surprisingly good. I think we've made another step forward."

Defending F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, who was nearly six-tenths off his teammate's pace, was one of several drivers to lose control of his car, spinning it twice during the second session.

"I had a couple of spins this afternoon but that just proves I was pushing hard. That's one of the problems with our car, you lose grip all of a sudden," Hamilton said. "Today, we weren't going for the quickest. But we may have the pace to be in the top 10."

Nakajima and one of the Force India cars also tangled, although neither car was damaged.

AP