• Spanish Grand Prix - First Practice

Hamilton sets early pace in Spain

ESPNF1 Staff
May 7, 2010 « F1 drivers propose split Q1 session for Monaco | »
Lewis Hamilton was fastest in first practice © Getty Images
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McLaren's Lewis Hamilton set the early benchmark at the Circuit de Catalunya ahead of this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, clocking a time of 1:21.134 ahead of team-mate Jenson Button.

Championship-leader Button was 0.538 off Hamilton as McLaren continued its season's trend of going for quick times during Friday practice. Michael Schumacher was third fastest in his heavily revised Mercedes, apparently much happier with the car and around 0.4s faster than team-mate Nico Rosberg. A longer wheelbase and a radical airbox design are among the most obvious changes to the W01, which Schumacher is hoping will go some way to addressing his poor start to the season.

The two Mercedes drivers were split by the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, who true to form this year, appeared to be running heavier fuel loads in FP1 as they set near-identical times. Behind Rosberg, who appeared to struggle a bit and ended up bouncing across the gravel trap at one point, was Robert Kubica in seventh. The Renault driver clocked a time that will go some way to allay his fears that his car might fall behind in the development race this weekend with no major new parts.

Kubica was followed by Fernando Alonso in the fastest Ferrari. The Italian team was evaluating its McLaren-inspired F-duct in order to reduce drag on the straights this weekend and increase top speed. With the fastest two cars through the speed trap, the Ferrari design was clearly having the desired effect, but the car's overall lack of pace and a number of minor mistakes by the drivers under braking suggest there is still work to be done. Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari was 12th fastest, 0.7 seconds off his team-mate and behind the cars of Vitaly Petrov, Kamui Kobayashi and Paul di Resta.

Improvements to Rubens Barrichello's Williams did little for his lap times and he was just 0.2 seconds faster than team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, whose car is the same as it was in China. Barrichello's challenge wasn't helped when he had to sit out of part of the session with concerns over oil pressure.

But his problems were nothing compared to Pedro de la Rosa's, whose car completed just three laps before gearbox problems struck. The Sauber is running new Burger King sponsorship this weekend, but after finishing just one race this year, there will still be big concerns over the reliability of the car. On the plus side, in the hands of Kamui Kobayashi, the updated C29 went tenth fastest.

Lotus's Heikki Kovalainen was fastest of the new teams, just over four seconds off the pace of Hamilton. His team has also brought a revised car to this weekend's race and both drivers' initial impressions were positive. The Virgins were just off the pace of Lotus, while HRT assumed its usual place at the bottom of the time sheets. New Friday test driver Christian Klien impressed, however, setting a time 0.5 seconds faster than HRT regular Bruno Senna.

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