Defending formula one champion Jenson Button of the McLaren formula one team clocked the fastest time in the opening practice session for the formula one Chinese Grand Prix. His teammate (Brit again :P) Lewis Hamilton also clocked a super time to be P2 in the practice session.

Nico Rosberg of the Mercedes GP team was third in the practive session while teammate and veteran Michael Schumacher who is looking to redeem himself at the Chinese Grand Prix was fourth. Sebastien Vettel for the Red Bull team was the fifth fastest during the session.

The biggest news of the circuit during the session was Sebastien Buemi’s crash in which both of his wheels seemed to fly off as he braked. The suspension on his car seemed to have broken and in some of the photos one can see extensive damage to tyres done on his car. Buemi thankfully escaped unhurt and was seen gesticulating to his team engineers. Scuderia Torro Rosso later gave a clarifying statement about the crash that read :

“Sebastien Buemi’s incident in FP1 was caused by the failure of the front-right upright “

Ferrari was ok in the practice but reliability woes hit them again. Fernando Alonso suffered an engine failure with smoke and fire coming out of the rear of his Ferrari 2010 challenger. At the hairpin of turn 6 Fernando Alonso’s car suffered this breakdown. Ferrari are going through their engines very fast with a limited number of engines allowed in the season and later on might have to deal with extra engine penalties.

Felipe Massa thankfully did not suffer an engine failure and was 10th fastest. Force India continued their good run with Adrian Sutil finishing the session 9th fastest ahead of Felipe Massa’s Ferrari. Force India also had some beautiful photos of the track (and their sponsors in the side profile ) :