Hello and welcome to our coverage of the weekend's racing activities at the Shanghai International circuit, China!

An eerie quiet momentarily descends on the Shanghai track as all cars are back in the garages after successful installation laps.

World champion Sebastian Vettel returns to the pit lane after his installation lap.

Schumacher, Webber and loyal McLaren driver (for now at least) Hamilton are out there now.

McLaren are again trying out their updated floor and exhaust system, having canned it in Malaysia and Button completes a second lap before pitting.

Button and Alonso are both out now, joining Petrov, Liuzzi, Buemi, Ricciardo and Karthikeyan.

90 minutes of the session this morning in which teams will get to run the rule over their machinery.

Track temperature is up to 38 degrees Celcius as Di Resta, Kobayashi and D'Ambrosio get out for installation laps.

Here we go then! The first practice session is under way!

Lotus have given the keys to Luiz Razia this morning while Daniel Ricciardo get another outing for Toro Rosso. Nico Hulkenberg gets the nod to test for Force India.

There have been showers around Shanghai today, but they passed to the south of the circuit and it looks like the first practice session will remain dry.

The action kicks off with the first practice session with weather fine and dry.