Alonso fastest, Vettel crashes in FP1

The Spaniard's best lap of 1m38.670s was set on intermediate tyres during a changeable and eventful session that featured a red flag because of an accident involving world champion Sebastian Vettel.

Mercedes drivers Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher were second and third fastest ahead of the Renault's of Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov.

Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi, typically spectacular, was sixth in the Sauber ahead of Felipe Massa, Toro Rosso Friday man Daniel Ricciardo and his team-mate Sebastien Buemi and Force India's Nico Hulkenberg.

The rain offered the first opportunity for the drivers and teams to learn about Pirelli's wet weather tyres in competition conditions, but as usual it was a while before anyone set a realistic time.

Just after half an hour Alonso set the first representative lap of the frontrunners with a 1m40.897s, on his fifth lap on full wet tyres. But already the Spaniard was indicating over the radio that he had already got the best from the Pirelli's grip window.

A couple of minutes later, Nico Rosberg moved the target time down to 1m40.072s - 0.8s faster than Alonso.

Mark Webber emerged from the pits just after halfway through the 90 minute session - the first driver to give the intermediates a try, but his lap was only good enough for tenth and he quickly returned to the pits.

Up to this point the rain had been steady, but light, then with 40 minutes to go it began to fall harder again and Rosberg told his team that aquaplaning was occurring at Turns 2 and 11.

That didn't stop Alonso moving back to the top of the times with a 1m38.670s, and he was on intermediates.

Meanwhile several drivers ignored Rosberg's advice and ran wide at the fast Turn 11 - a list that included Timo Glock, Sebastien Buemi, Schumacher, Felipe Massa and Sebastian Vettel who finally decided to venture on to the track having missed the driest period of running.

Not long after though, the world champion was in the barriers having given them a hefty whack when he ran wide at Turn 8. So hefty in fact that he brought out the red flag for 10 minutes - leaving just 15 minutes to go.

But the track was now thoroughly wet and those that ventured out discovered it had lost a couple of seconds in pace.

Both rookies Pastor Maldonado and Paul di Resta, as well as Schumacher all registered a spin each. Maldonado actually had two incidents - the second of which appeared to damage his car.

McLaren drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton did not complete any significant running, with the latter not even setting a time.

Pos  Driver                Team                   Time                Laps
 1.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m38.670s            13
 2.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m40.072s  + 1.402   14
 3.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m40.132s  + 1.462   18
 4.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault                1m40.338s  + 1.668    9
 5.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault                1m40.401s  + 1.731   10
 6.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m40.421s  + 1.751   16
 7.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m40.697s  + 2.027   14
 8.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m41.094s  + 2.424   18
 9.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m41.178s  + 2.508   22
10.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m41.347s  + 2.677   16
11.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m42.564s  + 3.894    5
12.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth      1m42.597s  + 3.927    7
13.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m43.525s  + 4.855   11
14.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1m43.913s  + 5.243    5
15.  Karun Chandhok        Lotus-Renault          1m43.986s  + 5.316    6
16.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth           1m44.787s  + 6.117   20
17.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m44.954s  + 6.284    4
18.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth        1m45.183s  + 6.513   15
19.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth        1m45.237s  + 6.567   11
20.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m48.461s  + 9.791    8
21.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault          1m51.676s  + 13.006   6
22.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m55.791s  + 17.121  13
23.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       2m00.666s  + 21.996   4
24.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       no time               1

All Timing Unofficial