Michael Schumacher made the ideal start to his 20th anniversary of racing in Formula One by topping the timesheets in the first free practice session at Spa Francorchamps thanks to an early dry run.
Schumacher, sporting a new golden helmet design, clocked a 1:54.355 in the opening minutes before the heavens opened causing a lull in proceedings. Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg was second fastest as the only other man to set a dry lap, ahead of Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton.
The majority of the field then bided their time in the pits as the rain bucketed it down during the first half hour, Sebastian Vettel bravely venturing out on intermediates shortly followed by a tentative Lewis Hamilton, correcting a scary looking twitch through Blanchimont.
Bruno Senna, replacing Nick Heidfeld at Renault for the weekend, was not so fortunate after sliding off and into the barriers at turn nine. Moments later, it was Paul di Resta's turn, the Scot going off in the exact same spot causing the session to be red flagged.
The circuit dried further late in the session to allow some drivers to improve on their times but Schumacher's dry run remained the benchmark.
Torrential rain 20 minutes in to the session soaked the track, as the unpredictable Spa weather saw the downpour replaced by a blast of sunshine before further rain all in the space of a minute. Once the weather settled down, drivers went out to analyse wet weather options which could be required on Sunday.
Of the wet times, Button's 2:02.740 put him over a second quicker than Vettel, with Hamilton a further 0.6s back. In the midfield, there was encouraging wet pace from Lotus as Jarno Trulli set the 13th quickest time, even beating Mark Webber who was 16th quickest. The teams will hope for some more dry running in FP2 as Sunday's forecast remains promising.
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