• Australian Grand Prix - FP2

Button finishes Friday on top

Jenson Button bouyed McLaren by setting the fastest time of Friday practice © Sutton Images

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• Australian Grand Prix

Jenson Button and McLaren led the way at the end of the first day of practice at the Australian Grand Prix, as the car's upgrade package appeared to pay off.

McLaren had flagged a one second gap to its rivals after pre-season testing in Barcelona and entered the weekend pinning its hopes on a new exhaust and floor. After testing the waters in the first practice session with some longer runs, Button and team-mate Lewis Hamilton let rip on the soft tyres in second practice to go first and second fastest.

But whether Red Bull and Ferrari were pushing quite as hard remains to be seen, as Fernando Alonso finished third fastest - 0.147 off Button - and Vettel was fourth - 0.160 off the fastest McLaren. As always in Friday practice, fuel loads remain a mystery and the times are far from conclusive. The Red Bull certainly looks more stable over Albert Park's bumpy surface and Ferrari often saved their best until Saturday last season. Nevertheless, it will be a welcome boost for McLaren, who had feared that they might not be in the running this weekend.

Michael Schumacher crept into the top six ahead of Ferrari's Felipe Massa, but the Mercedes has yet to live up to the headlines it set in pre-season testing. Renault also showed no signs of replicating its promising winter performance in Melbourne, with Vitaly Petrov and Nick Heidfeld both outside the top ten.

Hopes that the three newest F1 teams might have closed the gap over the winter also look to be misplaced, after the Lotuses finished five seconds off Button's best, the Virgins over six seconds off and HRT completed just one installation lap with two minutes of the session remaining. As a result Narain Karthikeyan heads into Saturday's final practice and qualifying without turning a wheel in the new car.

In the final 30 minutes of the session the FIA imposed limited use of the moveable rear wing to simulate race conditions. As a result the fastest times were set just before the cut off, with teams reverting to heavy fuel loads at the end - a strategy that also allowed them to evaluate the longevity of the Pirelli tyres. On a couple of occasions cars did get close enough to one another to use the wing on the pit straight, but with rain in the air and so much more to lose than gain no one completed a passing move.

With many teams carrying messages of support for Japan, it was announced after practice that a minute's silence would be held on the grid before the race on Sunday. An FIA statement said that it was "out of respect for all the victims of the recent natural disasters in Japan, Australia and New Zealand".

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