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SAO PAULO - Championship leader Lewis Hamilton led the way in free practice for the title-deciding Brazilian Grand Prix on Saturday (NZ time) while his McLaren team were fined for breaking the tyre rules.
The 22-year-old Briton, who could become the youngest champion and first rookie to take the title after Monday's season-ender, topped the day's timesheets with a lap of one minute 12.767 seconds.
However, his delight at mastering a track he saw for the first time only on Thursday was overshadowed by a summons to see the stewards for using more than the one set of wet tyres allowed.
In the end, the officials decided that neither the team nor the driver had gained any benefit but fined McLaren 15,000 euros ($29,000) for the lapse.
Hamilton's Spanish team mate and main title rival, double world champion Fernando Alonso, was second in 1:12.889 on a drying track in the afternoon after morning rain.
"We've obviously got very good pace, the track is awesome," said Hamilton. "I think it's close but I think we have the pace to be up the front."
Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, the last man in the three-way title battle, had led a Ferrari one-two in the morning session with a lap of 1:19.580.
The Finn, seven points behind Hamilton and three adrift of Alonso, slipped to fourth in the afternoon behind Brazilian team mate Felipe Massa - last year's winner in his home city.
Raikkonen needs to win Monday's race and hope his McLaren rivals slip up to have a realistic chance of lifting a Formula One crown that has eluded him before.
"This morning in the wet we just checked that the car was okay and then in the afternoon .... the track still had some damp patches," he said.
"We are reasonably happy with the way today went but there is still a lot of room for improvement on the car."
Alonso won both his previous titles at Interlagos and hopes for a third in a row on Monday to make him the first driver since Juan Manuel Fangio in 1957 to win back-to-back championships with different teams.
"We did not expect it to stay wet for the rest of the weekend, so we took the decision not to do any running in the morning," said the Spaniard.
"Also there is a new track surface here and as a result it was very slippery."
- REUTERS
