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SAO PAULO, Brazil : Local hero Felipe Massa of Ferrari clocked the fastest time in Friday's opening free practice session for Sunday's world championship showdown at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The 27-year-old Paulista recorded a best time of one minute and 12.305 seconds to wind up quickest almost two-tenths of a second ahead of drivers world championship leader Lewis Hamilton of McLaren.
Massa's Ferrari team-mate and outgoing world champion Kimi Raikkonen was third fastest behind the two title protagonists who are keenly matched as they approach the title-decider.
Hamilton, 23, leads Massa by seven points and only needs to finish in the top five at Interlagos to take the title.
Hamilton held the advantage for most of the session, which took place on a mostly dry track occasionally made slippery by drizzle.
Massa only responded in the closing minutes after the two of them spent most of the 90 minutes sitting in their garages while outsiders like another Brazilian Nelson Piquet of Renault and German Timo Glock of Toyota took their chance to shine.
When the two title fighters came out Hamilton was soon up to the pace and clocked 1:12.495 to top the times while Massa chipped away with successive fast laps before he managed to clip any time off Hamilton's lap.
As always at Interlagos, persistent rain made the track treacherous for a period before Massa recorded an improved time to improve Hamilton's time by 0.19 seconds.
Hamilton locked up in the final minutes and flat-spotted a tyre in his efforts to improve his time before the end while Raikkonen was almost as fast as the Englishman with a time that was just short by one-hundredths of a second.
Pole Robert Kubica was fourth fastest for BMW Sauber ahead of Hamilton's McLaren team-mate Finn Heikki Kovalainen.
- AFP /ls
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