Vitaly Petrov of Russia and Caterham drives during practice for the Indian Formula One Grand Prix at Buddh International Circuit. (Photo: Getty Images)

Caterham
The Caterham drivers were happy with progress, although they were still some way off the Toro Rosso ahead. Vitaly Petrov pipped Heikki Kovalainen to 19th. The Finn had a spin at the end of the session but it didn’t make any difference to his position. The team had planned to do two stops but tire degradation saw a chance to one. Both men lost out to Pedro de la Rosa at the start but normality was soon restored with Kovalainen running ahead of a his team mate. Kovalainen then had a KERS problem which led to a place change, the pair coming home 17th and 18th with Petrov in front.

HRT
With Narain Karthikeyan in the cockpit HRT had more attention than usual, and despite traffic issues the local man did at least outpace Charles Pic to take 23rd, a place behind his team mate Pedro de la Rosa. The Spaniard had a great first lap and cheekily jumped up to 17th and first of the cars from the ‘new’ teams. He couldn’t stay there of course and after he dropped back a brake failure caused him to spin off on lap 43. Karthikeyan suffered some wing damage on the first lap and like his team mate also had brake problems. He finished 21st.

Charles Pic of France and Marussia drives during practice for the Indian Formula One Grand Prix at Buddh International Circuit. (Photo: Getty Images)

Marussia
Timo Glock qualified 21st, just 0.1s behind the Caterham of Kovalainen, a margin more than accounted for by the lack of KERS. Charles Pic found himself going slower on the soft tires than he had on the hard and was a disappointed 24th, behind both HRTs. The drivers had different fortunes on the first lap. Glock was delayed by the Schumacher/Vergne clash, while Pic got ahead of his team mate and Petrov. He lost out to the Caterham due to KERS, but managed to stay ahead of Glock all the way to the flag as the pair finished 19th and 20th.

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED