Button sets pace in Chinese GP practice

The two-week break since the last race has done little to alter the new order of Formula One,with Brawn8217;s Jenson Button setting the fastest time in today8217;s practice for Sunday8217;s Chinese Grand Prix. The 2009 championship leader posted a time of 1 minute,35.679 seconds at the Shanghai International Circuit,just .025 of a second ahead of Williams8217; Nico Rosberg,with Button8217;s teammate Rubens Barrichello third fastest. 8220;The balance of the car really improved over the last couple of runs today after we8217;d been struggling a little to find the right set-up early on,8221; Button said. 8220;We completed a great deal of work with the two very different tire compounds to establish what condition they would be in after longer runs. We8217;re still not quite there on the balance.8221; Brawn emerged as the fastest team in the afternoon session,after world champion Lewis Hamilton of McLaren was quickest in the morning. Button8217;s emergence again illustrated the benefit of using a modified diffuser after a midweek court hearing gave the OK for teams to have two-tiered diffusers like those used by Brawn,Williams and Toyota. McLaren8217;s alteration was an interim one,with genuine changes to come in later races. However,Hamilton was only 13th fastest in the afternoon,having only improved four-tenths of a second on his morning time while others made more progress. 8220;We8217;ve made some small steps forward and the team,back at the factory,have been working very hard,8221; Hamilton said. 8220;But we still have a long way to go.8221;

Another team making little progress was Ferrari. Still pointless this season,Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen were 12th and 14th quickest respectively in the 20-car field. Ferrari8217;s dropping of the problematical KERS power-boost system for this race had further reduced the team8217;s chance of catching up.

8220;I can say our fight for the championship is ever more compromised,8221; Massa said. 8220;We are losing even more performance,in addition to not having as much aerodynamic downforce as the best cars.8221; The Red Bull pair of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were fourth and fifth on the timesheets,while Toyota8217;s Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock were sixth and eighth. Kazuki Nakajima was seventh best in his Williams. Today8217;s sessions were the first opportunity for teams to test new parts added in the two-week break since the previous race in Malaysia. The teams were banned from in-season testing this year. In contrast to Ferrari,BMW8217;s Robert Kubica added the KERS device to his car,having foregone it in Australia and Malaysia because of its weight. It was an unhappy experiment

for the Pole,who was a lowly 17th fastest in afternoon practice.