Vettel took the first free practice of the weekend. The German finished first in front of Alonso, Rosberg, Massa and Hamilton. It was an eventful session with crashes of Liuzzi and Schumacher and a short red flag period.

The session started like most other first free practice sessions this year: the drivers did their installation laps and didn't come out for a while. Narain Karthikeyan was the first to set consecutive timed laps. The Indian went out for a long stint and got in 10 laps before most drivers drove their second lap. Sergio Perez was also able to do a good amount of timed laps in the first half hour of the session. The Mexican easily beat the best time of Karthikeyan with a 1:23.206.

At the halfway point majority of drivers did a lap. It was Felipe Massa who was leading the field with a 1:18.582. He was in front Sutil and Vettel. Mark Webber was forced to retire after driving only three laps. The Australian had gearbox problems that couldn't be fixed during the free practice.

With 40 minutes to go the session was red flagged for a short while because of a water leak on the main straight. After officials took a look at the water they decided that the session could be restarted. The drivers only lost 5 minutes track time.

Not much later the session took its second victim: Vitantonio Liuzzi. The Italian lost control of his HRT under braking at the chicane. His nose touched the wall and he couldn't continue. On the front end their was a small battle between Hamilton and both Ferrari's. The three cars were within 2 tenths of each other.

In the final minutes of the session a lot happened. Schumacher misjudged the first corner and crashed into the tyres. The impact wasn't extremely hard but it was the end of his session. The three way battle for P1 turned into a fight between five drivers after Vettel and Rosberg joined. In the end it was Sebastian Vettel who was fastest: 1:16.619. Alonso came close and was just a tenth behind the the Red Bull driver.