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SEPANG, MALAYSIA - EARLY world championship pacesetter Lewis Hamilton continued his early season domination on Friday, coming out on top in practice for Sunday's Malaysian Grand Prix.
The 23-year-old British McLaren Mercedes-Benz driver produced a fastest lap of one minute and 35.055 seconds in the final five minutes of the afternoon session run in warm and humid conditions at Sepang.
His hot lap left the British driver 0.1 seconds clear of Brazilian Felipe Massa, who led a Ferrari revival following their dismal weekend at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
Massa led his team-mate, defending world champion Finn Kimi Raikkonen, who was three-tenths of a second off the pace set by Hamilton.
Hamilton's McLaren team-mate, Finn Heikki Kovalainen, wound up seventh fastest behind fourth-placed Briton Jenson Button, in a Honda, German Sebastian Vettel, who was fifth for Toro Rosso, and sixth-placed Italian Jarno Trulli of Toyota.
The times show that Ferrari appear to have overcome the worst of the gremlins that wrecked their weekend in Australia, but also demonstrate that Hamilton is the man to beat.
On an afternoon when the air temperature rose to 32 degrees Celsius and the track temperature reached 50 degrees, before cooling, it was the relative humidity level that rose to 74 per cent that caused the major discomfort for the drivers and the teams.
All of the drivers, including the super-fit Hamilton, were sweating heavily in the sweltering conditions on the track that encourages overtaking.
But following a morning that saw Briton David Coulthard's day wrecked when he crashed heavily and badly damaged his Red Bull while his team-mate Australian Mark Webber suffered an engine failure, the afternoon was relatively straightforward.
Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais stopped on the track in the opening minutes and was unable to produce a lap time, joining Coulthard among the afternoon's non-runners.
Raikkonen, keen to banish his nightmare weekend in Melbourne, was soon fastest on the track and led the times for a long period before Massa took over, only to be outpaced in the closing minutes by Hamilton.
Button's success underlined a growing feeling that Honda may at last be developing a car and package - under the guidance of former Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn - that can run among the pace-setters. -- AFP
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