• Schumacher sets pace with Lewis Hamilton 0.177s slower
• First practice session affected by persistent drizzle

The seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher set the fastest time on the opening day of practice ahead of Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix, the Mercedes driver lapping the Shanghai International Circuit in 1m 35.973s.

The German set his time in the second of the two sessions, the first having been affected by persistent drizzle – a possible portent of conditions for Sunday. Schumacher and his team-mate, Nico Rosberg, have been cleared to continue using a controversial rear wing, which some rivals felt infringed the regulations, after a formal protest from the Lotus team was rejected by FIA stewards on Thursday evening.

Last year’s winner, Lewis Hamilton, was second fastest for McLaren, just 0.177s slower than Schumacher. The Englishman has taken pole position for the opening two races of the campaign, but if he is fastest again in qualifying he will line up only sixth, having been handed a five-position grid penalty in the wake of an unscheduled gearbox swap.

The Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were third and fourth respectively, ahead of Rosberg and Jenson Button in the second McLaren.

If the race proceeds without climatic interruption of the kind that turned the Malaysian Grand Prix on its head three weeks ago, Red Bull and McLaren are expected to resume their duel at the head of the field. So far this season the Mercedes drivers have been fleet of foot over a single lap, but have struggled to maintain that pace in race time because their car has a greater appetite for tyres than most.

Kamui Kobayashi was seventh for Sauber, just ahead of Paul di Resta. The Scot did not run during the morning after handing his car to the Force India reserve, Jules Bianchi, the highly-rated Frenchman who forms part of Ferrari’s young driver development programme. In the second session, Di Resta escaped without damage after spinning at the final corner and recovered to set a time within one second of Schumacher.

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• Hamilton leads second practice after Button fastest in first
• Ferraris head Red Bull of world champion Sebastian Vettel

Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button were the most impressive drivers in practice at the Yas Marina circuit on Friday, proving too hot for Red Bull and Ferrari ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Hamilton finished top of the second, twilight session as Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso came to grief. Hamilton beat Button into second place and the McLarens were followed by the Ferraris of Alonso and Felipe Massa then the Red Bulls of Vettel and Mark Webber.

Vettel and Alonso came off the track at Turn One. Alonso’s accident, in which he broke his rear wing and suspension, caused the session to be halted, though he recovered to finish close behind the McLarens.

The Red Bulls dominated the first part of the session after Force India’s Paul di Resta had been the early leader. By the end of the session the Red Bulls had been the third-fastest cars behind the McLarens and Ferraris.

Button, who has had six podiums including two victories in the past seven races, finished fastest in the first practice session and it was almost another one-two for McLaren, with a late charge from Webber splitting the two cars from the Woking stable.

But it was an unhappy session for Ferrari, with Alonso and Massa spinning off the track. Alonso appeared to have a problem with oversteer and twice ran wide on Turn Eight.

There was a strong drive from Adrian Sutil, whose position at Force India has been the subject of much debate with next year’s contracts due to be announced shortly. Sutil finished seventh in the first session, ahead of Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes, and was eighth with another good drive when the shadows lengthened.

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• Australian sets the pace at rain-hit Spa-Francorchamps
• Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton third and fourth

Mark Webber took the honours in another rain-hit practice session for Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix.

In the initial 90 minutes only the Mercedes pair of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg were able to set times before the capricious nature of the region’s weather took hold.

The afternoon was a different story as the field enjoyed 55 minutes of relatively dry running at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit prior to the heavens opening again.

Although it eased off and a number of cars returned to the track, the majority settled for their dry times which were never going to be troubled.

Come the conclusion, Webber sat at the top of the timesheet with a lap of 1min 50.321sec, 0.140sec clear of the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso.

Such times, however, were over four seconds off Webber’s pole lap of last year, clearly indicating all the top teams have more in their locker.

The McLaren pair of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton were half a second adrift in third and fourth, both Britons managing only nine laps.

Hamilton left it fashionably late before making his entrance, with his best time set on his only lap on the faster soft tyres moments before the rain came down.

Further adrift but still within a second of Webber were Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Rosberg before a gap of almost 0.4sec to Sauber’s Sergio Perez.

Behind the Mexican were the Force India pair of Nico Hulkenberg and Paul di Resta, the former in the car to the annoyance of Adrian Sutil. Ordinarily reserve drivers take part in first practice, however, on this occasion Force India opted to reverse the order, leaving Sutil on the sidelines in the afternoon.

That meant the German missed the only true dry running of the day to which he said: “It is not good for the performance to not be in the car. It’s a bit disappointing what the team has done because it’s not good for the success. It was the only dry session we had and I missed it.”

The reigning world champion and current championship leader Sebastian Vettel was forced to settle for 10th spot, 1.469sec behind Webber, with Schumacher 11th.

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• Sebastian Vettel recovers from crash to be second fastest
• Difficult day for Lewis Hamilton and McLaren after puncture

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso topped the second practice session at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve on Friday. And if this was a trailer for the real thing on Sunday the Canadian Grand Prix will be a cracker – or should that be crasher?

There were a number of incidents, to add to Sebastian Vettel’s prang in the morning session. But Red Bull rivals who thought Vettel might have damaged his prospects for Saturday’s's qualifying session were disappointed.

The world champion missed a large part of the morning run-out but returned and was second to Alonso in the afternoon – in 2008 Vettel also crashed here in practice and was unable to take part in qualifying.

In the second run Felipe Massa was third, ahead of the McLaren pair of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. It was another frustrating day for Hamilton, who had a puncture in addition to his earlier problems with his steering wheel data.

The third Briton, Paul di Resta, was sixth on his first time on the track, one place ahead of Mark Webber. But the afternoon session was more memorable for its crashes than its fast times.

This is an unforgiving circuit and with 30 minutes to go Kamui Kobayashi hit the wall at the first chicane and his Sauber was in pieces.

When the session restarted it was not for long. After a few more minutesVirgin’s Jérôme d’Ambrosio came unstuck at the same part of the track and another heavy contact was followed by another red flag.

Adrian Sutil also had problems with his Force India car. He hit a wall coming out of Turn 7. And there were a number of other small incidents.

The morning practice was dominated by Mercedes, who were well off the pace later on. Nico Rosberg was fastest and his team-mate Michael Schumacher was third; Alonso was the filling in the German sandwich with Button and Hamilton fifth and sixth respectively. But it was the second session that had most of the thrills and spills.

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• Jenson Button attributes improvement to lessons from girlfriend
• Sebastian Vettel crashes out in morning session

Jenson Button was fastest in practice for Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix after admitting that he had been taking driving lessons from his girlfriend, Jessica Michibata.

Button, who won here in 2009 and was second last year, dominated the dry afternoon practice session on Friday after Sebastian Vettel had crashed out in the rain in the morning session.

The McLaren driver, who parked in the Red Bull pit bay during the last race in China, said: “The missus took the piss out of me quite a bit. She’s teaching me how to park.

“She can’t drive either. She passed her test two years ago and she hasn’t driven since. I have just bought her a car. It’s a nice little Mini Cooper cabriolet, which is an awesome bit of kit. Really nice, cream with a hot chocolate roof and hot chocolate seats. They’re even more chocolaty now after a couple of drives with her. The passenger seat anyway.”

Button said she had been driving him near his home in Guernsey, where the speed limit is 35mph. “It felt quite quick from the passenger seat. Guernsey is the most difficult place to drive as well because the junctions are blind. She did well. I’m very proud of her. She can park better than me.”

Button, who last won in China on 18 April last year, added: “I don’t night and day think damn I haven’t won a race for ages. I go out there and race and I enjoy myself. And if I win … amazing.

“That’s what I want to do. But if it doesn’t happen and I have a great race and loads of overtaking moves and good fights, that’s good too. It’s not as good as winning but it’s good. We should enjoy the moment and forget about the past and not look too far into the future. Just enjoy what we have.”

Button took advantage of the absence of Vettel – whose car was badly damaged in the morning – to edge past Nico Rosberg in the second practice session. Vettel ran wide on turn eight, a triple-apex left-hander, and crashed into the barriers, severely damaging the front and right-hand side of his car.

Button’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton was third, followed by Michael Schumacher and Mark Webber. Felipe Massa, who has won here three times, was sixth. Button, who last year lost out to Hamilton after one of their better battles, added: “There will be a lot of close racing here. I am looking forward to that.”

Fernando Alonso had been fastest in the earlier session but was hampered by a hydraulics problem later in the day. The bottom four places were taken by the two Virgin Racing cars of Jérôme d’Ambrosio and Timo Glock, and the Hispanias of Narain Karthikeyan and Vitantonio Liuzzi.

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• Spaniard crashed his Honda in practice at Motegi circuit
• Injury effectively hands Jorge Lorenzo the MotoGP title

Spain’s Dani Pedrosa broke his collarbone when crashing his Honda in today’s practice for the weekend’s Japanese grand prix.

His injury looks like effectively handing countryman Jorge Lorenzo the MotoGP title with Pedrosa the only man in a position to overtake the Yamaha rider in the standings.

Pedrosa, who trails Lorenzo by 56 points with five races remaining this season, suffered a multiple fracture of his left collarbone after just six minutes on the track at Motegi.

He is likely to miss the next three races which take place over the next three weekends. The Italian Valentino Rossi set the quickest lap in the first free practice for Sunday’s race.

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• Fernando Alonso is second fastest for Ferrari
• Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button both off the pace

Mark Webber dominated the second practice session of the British grand prix here, with the Australian posting the fastest time of the day ahead of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and his Red Bull team-mate, Sebastian Vettel.

On a day when Lewis Hamilton and Jensen Button both struggled in their McLarens, Webber, who is 24 points behind championship leader Hamilton, placed the memory of his crash in last month’s Valencia grand prix behind him. With Vettel in third there appears a real prospect of Red Bull repeating last year’s 1-2 finish here.

Webber, who clocked a time of 1min 31.234sec around the new-look Silverstone circuit, said: “It was a pretty good day apart from the electrical problem at the end, which was a shame – we lost a few laps.” The 33-year-old lost around 15 minutes of the session due to the malfunction but Webber has confidence in his Red Bull ahead of qualifying.

“The car seems to be going pretty well here. I think a few of the other teams were sandbagging a bit [purposefully going slow], but we’re happy with our programme and looking forward to qualifying. The new section of the track is pretty difficult, but it’s a good challenge.”

Vettel, who like Webber benefited from a switch to softer tyres, is ahead of his team-mate in third in the championship with 115 points, 12 behind Hamilton. He said: “The sessions were OK today – in the afternoon we had a bit of a spin and flat-spotted a set of hard tyres. We also had a problem with the brake pedal but nothing big. The pace of the car was good.

“The new section of the track is quite low speed, but it’s not as slow as we expected and doesn’t kill the rhythm. It adds something new and makes it more of a challenge. The track here is magnificent, it’s good fun, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

Alonso, meanwhile, was content but insistent that Ferrari had to improve. “It’s been a pretty good Friday but we know we have to improve the car,” he said. “The Red Bulls are a lot quicker than us at the moment, so we’ll try to get as close as possible tomorrow to have a good Saturday.”

The Spaniard also feels there is more to come from the McLarens. “It will be very close tomorrow. We saw at Valencia too that McLaren on Friday was far back in the second session and then on Saturday Hamilton was in front of us and Button right behind. I think it will be similar, with three or four teams fighting for positions and let’s hope we are a bit in front of them.”

One driver not at Silverstone this weekend is Bruno Senna, the nephew of three-time champion Ayrton, though his HRT F1 team said last night that the Brazilian will get the drive for the rest of the season.

Senna has been replaced here by Sakon Yamamoto, possibly because the Japanese driver has greater financial backing, and a statement from Hispania said: “In respect to the rumours about Bruno Senna’s current [status] with Hispania, the team wants to confirm that he has all the support, that he remains one of [our] official drivers and he will be continuing to drive the remaining races.”

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