Practice, Practice, Practice

From China to the United Kingdom and France, top drivers from around the globe took to the track preparing for racing this Easter weekend.

Formula One is in China and Lewis Hamilton topped the second session with a lap of 1:38.315. Second fastest was Fernando Alonso, 0.141 seconds back. Nico Rosberg was third, 0.411 seconds back of his teammate. Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top five.

Felipe Massa was sixth ahead of his former Ferrari teammate Kimi Räikkönen. Jenson Button was eighth with Romain Grosjean in ninth in the first good session of the season for Lotus-Renault. Daniil Kvyat rounded out the top ten.

Nico Hülkenberg was eleventh ahead of rookie Kevin Magnussen. Jean-Éric Vergne was thirteenth with Valterri Bottas and podium finisher from Bahrain Sergio Pérez in fifteenth. The Sauber-Ferraris of Esteban Gutiérrez and Adrian Sutil were sixteenth and seventeenth. Pastor Maldonado was eighteenth but his session ended early are having an accident entering the pit lane.

The Marussias of Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton led the Caterhams of Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson in the final four positions.

The 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship season begins this weekend at Silverstone and defending champions Audi were on top Friday. Lucas di Grassi set the fastest lap at 1:43.134 driving the #1 R18 e-tron quattro. The #2 Audi was second, as André Lotterer was four tenths off. #7 Toyota was third, nearly a second back with Kazuki Nakajima setting the fastest time. The #20 Porsche of Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley was nearly two seconds back. The #8 Toyota rounded out the top five with the #12 Rebellion Racing sixth and the #14 Porsche in seventh. The #13 Rebellion rounded out the LMP1 times.

The #26 G-Drive Racing Morgan-Nissan was tops in LMP2 with a lap of 1:50.401. The #47 KCMG Oreca-Nissan was 0.302 seconds back in second with the SMP Racing Oreca-Nissans rounding out the four-car LMP2 field.

Porsche topped GTE Pro with the #92 Porsche setting the fastest lap at 2:00.057, 0.211 seconds ahead of the privateer British entrant, #52 Ram Racing Ferrari. The #91 Porsche was third. Defending GT champions Ferrari were fourth and fifth with the #71 of Davide Rigon and James Calado ahead of defending GT drivers champion Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander. The #97 Aston Martin of Darren Turner and Stefan Mücke were sixth, 1.731 seconds back. The #99 Aston Martin of Alex MacDowell, Fernando Rees and Darryl O'Young rounded out GTE Pro.

The #88 Proton Competition Porsche led GTE Am with a time of 2:00.570 seconds. The #61 Ferrari was second followed by the #98 and #95 Aston Martins respectively. The #75 Proton Porsche, #53 Ram Racing Ferrari and #90 8Star Ferrari rounded out GTE AM.

After sweeping the opening weekend of the 2014 World Touring Car Championship at Marrakech, Citroën driver José María López and Sébastien Loeb led Friday's test at Paul Ricard. López set the top time at 1:31.227 with Loeb 0.138 seconds back. Honda's Nobert Michelisz was third, 0.908 seconds back. Frenchmen Hugo Valente and Yvan Muller rounded out the top five.

Gianni Morbidelli was sixth and former Formula One driver Tiago Montero was seventh. Tom Chilton was eighth with Serbian Dušan Borković in ninth. The 2009 WTCC champion Gabriele Tarquini rounded out the top ten.

Five hundred seventy-seven kilometers (358.53 miles) west of Paul Ricard, the Blancpain Sprint Series held their first practice session for the opening round of their 2014 season at Circuit Paul Armagnac in Nogaro, France. Defending co-champion Laurens Vanthoor and César Ramos led an Audi 1-2-3 on Friday with a time of 1:26.207 seconds, ahead of teammates René Rast and Enzo Ide and the Phoenix Racing's Markus Winkelhock and Niki Mayr-Meinhof.

Lamborghini's Jeroen Bleekmolen and Sascha Halek were fourth with Silver Cup Audi drivers Mateusz Lisowski and Vincent Abril. Mercedes drivers Maximilian Buhk and Maximilian Götz were sixth with their teammates Stef Dusseldorp and Sergei Afanasiev in seventh. Eighth place was the G-Drive Audi of defending co-champion Stéphane Ortelli and Grégory Guilvert.

Alex Zanardi returns to racing after a five-year sabbatical. He was thirteenth fastest, 1.955 seconds back of the top time and was the second fastest BMW. Zanardi last competed in the WTCC in 2009.