Mark Webber finished the first free practice back in Europe as first. He finished in front of Petrov, Alonso, Hamilton and Heidfeld.

At 10:00 local time the first drivers went out for their first free practice session. The weather was a little clouded but still a warm 25 degrees Celsius. The track appeared very dusty during the installation laps. The drivers usually do one or two laps to make sure that the car has been rebuild properly and all systems work as intended.

The first to set a full lap was Nico Hulkenberg. The German replaced Paul di Resta this session at Force India and did a 1:47.942. Within a few laps the Brit sharpened his lap time to a 1:43.769. Other drivers waited a few more minutes before setting timed laps. Hulkenberg was looking to improve his time in his seventh lap when he lost control under braking at the end of the long straight. He oversteered into the wall and broke his rear suspension. It marked the end of the session for Hulkenberg and it was obvious that there was some work to be done to get the car ready for the second free practice. Next to Hulkenberg there were two other third drivers who participated in the session: Karun Chandhok at Team Lotus and Daniel Ricciardo at Scuderia Toro Rosso.

After 30 minutes other drivers started doing full laps. In a few laps the time set by Hulkenberg was beaten by a handful of drivers. Michael Schumacher was leading early on with a 1:43.050. Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were the only ones who only did one lap. The session of Chandhok was cut short when he encountered gearbox problems. The Indian driver had a failure of his second gear and wasn't able to do a timed lap.

The following period was relatively uneventful. Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel went out to start their practice 'proper'. Webber immediately showed the speed of his Red Bull and did a 1:40.852 an hour into the session. He was leading Alonso, Massa, Button and Sutil.

In the final part of the session times continued to drop. Mark Webber managed to improve his time even further to a 1:40.403. He had a comfortable lead of 0.8 second to Vitaly Petrov who was second. Alonso was third, Hamilton fourth and Heidfeld set the fifth fastest time. Sebastian Vettel was 16th. In the final seconds Timo Glock made a mistake in Turn 5 and spun his Virgin. His car wasn't damaged but stalled and blocked the track. It caused a yellow flag till the end of the session.