Sutil fastest in F1 opening session for Force India
Sutil fastest in F1 opening session for Force India
The 27-year-old driver clocked a best time of 1min 56.583sec to come out on top of the timesheets ahead of both Ferraris after an intriguing first session.
This also saw the new Hispania team, with Bruno Senna at the wheel, run in earnest for the first time just hours after being passed safe to take part.
Senna is the nephew of three-times champion Ayrton Senna and it was his debut in F1.
Sutil's best lap left him one-tenth of a second clear of nearest rival and two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, making his debut for Ferrari, after his move from Renault.
Alonso's last lap was not fast enough to dislodge Sutil.
Poland's Robert Kubica, who replaced Alonso at Renault after leaving former BMW-Sauber team, was third ahead of Brazilian Felipe Massa, in the second Ferrari, making his return for the first time since an horrific accident at the Hungarian Grand Prix last year.
Massa made light of the eye and head injuries that he suffered with a best lap that was just four-tenths of a second off the pace.
Defending drivers world champion Briton Jenson Button was fifth in his first outing with the McLaren team after leaving the former Brawn team, now taken over by Mercedes, ahead of his team-mate and compatriot Lewis Hamilton, the 2008 champion.
The two McLaren men had traded fastest laps early in the session.
Seven-times champion Michael Schumacher returned to action after three years in retirement to clock the 10th best time for the 'new' Mercedes team - the first official entry by the German company since 1955 - but he was outpaced by his 17-years-younger team-mate and fellow-German Nico Rosberg, who was eighth.
Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi, of Force India, and Australian Mark Webber, of Red Bull, were seventh and ninth while another German Sebastian Vettel, who finished runner up last season behind Button, was down in 13th place for Red Bull at the end of the morning's running.
The first indications were that he and Webber had demonstrated that the Red Bull team was suffering most from tyre wear, a factor that is likely to be a major issue under this season's revised regulations.
The session began with Italian Jarno Trulli leading the way out in his Lotus, the famous old marque's name returning to F1 for the first time since 1994.
Both Lotus drivers, Trulli and Finn Heikki Kovalainen, took part along with the two Virgin cars and Senna's Hispania machine on a day of high anticipation.