McLaren lead practice one in Spain
Lewis Hamilton was quickest in first practice in Barcelona
Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button got McLaren’s Spanish Grand Prix weekend off to a strong start by topping the times sheets in the first practice session.
Michael Schumacher put the revised Mercedes third fastest as practice got started at the Circuit de Catalunya.
The first driver to set a lap was Timo Glock, trying the revised version of the VR-01. The car shed its left turning vane on its first lap of the Barcelona track and Glock spent much of the next hour in the pits.
Felipe Massa made an early start for Ferrari, setting the fastest time to begin with using the team’s version of the F-duct for the first time.
Team mate Fernando Alonso also tried the blown rear wing and did back-to-back tests with the F10 in its ‘unblown’ configuration.
Over at Mercedes, Michael Schumacher put the first laps on the updated W01 with its distinctive new airbox. He briefly took over the top of the times sheets but was demoted by the two McLarens.
Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton waited until the half-way point of the session before taking to the track. Button went quickest to begin with before being beaten by his team mate with a 1’21.134.
Another team running a significant upgrade package this weekend are Lotus. Heikki Kovalainen’s best time was 4.1 seconds off the quickest, with a two second gap to the midfield, suggesting they have made progress.
Towards the end of the session Nico Hülkenberg stopped on the track, a puff of smoke from the rear of his Williams suggesting he’d suffered an engine failure.
Pedro de la Rosa also ended his session early after suffering a gearbox failure on his Sauber, failing to set a time. And Button had to abort a run after running over debris on his way out of the pits, damaging the floor on his McLaren.
At HRT, Christian Klien made his first appearance as a reserve driver since 2007 – and beat regular driver Bruno Senna by half a second.
| Pos. | Car | Driver | Car | Best lap | Laps | |
| 1 | 2 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’21.134 | 21 | |
| 2 | 1 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1’21.672 | 0.538 | 14 |
| 3 | 3 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | 1’21.716 | 0.582 | 12 |
| 4 | 6 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1’22.011 | 0.877 | 27 |
| 5 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1’22.026 | 0.892 | 22 |
| 6 | 4 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1’22.070 | 0.936 | 19 |
| 7 | 11 | Robert Kubica | Renault | 1’22.202 | 1.068 | 22 |
| 8 | 8 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1’22.258 | 1.124 | 19 |
| 9 | 12 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 1’22.397 | 1.263 | 23 |
| 10 | 23 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’22.492 | 1.358 | 26 |
| 11 | 16 | Sebastien Buemi | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’22.588 | 1.454 | 24 |
| 12 | 7 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1’22.975 | 1.841 | 22 |
| 13 | 14 | Paul di Resta | Force India-Mercedes | 1’23.030 | 1.896 | 21 |
| 14 | 17 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1’23.110 | 1.976 | 31 |
| 15 | 15 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India-Mercedes | 1’23.284 | 2.15 | 19 |
| 16 | 9 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth | 1’23.312 | 2.178 | 22 |
| 17 | 10 | Nico Hülkenberg | Williams-Cosworth | 1’23.471 | 2.337 | 20 |
| 18 | 19 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Cosworth | 1’25.329 | 4.195 | 17 |
| 19 | 18 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Cosworth | 1’26.244 | 5.11 | 20 |
| 20 | 24 | Timo Glock | Virgin-Cosworth | 1’26.340 | 5.206 | 23 |
| 21 | 25 | Lucas di Grassi | Virgin-Cosworth | 1’26.694 | 5.56 | 24 |
| 22 | 20 | Christian Klien | HRT-Cosworth | 1’27.250 | 6.116 | 26 |
| 23 | 21 | Bruno Senna | HRT-Cosworth | 1’27.752 | 6.618 | 27 |
| 24 | 22 | Pedro de la Rosa | Sauber-Ferrari | 3 |
2010 Spanish Grand Prix
- 2010 Spanish Grand Prix – the complete F1 Fanatic race weekend review
- Whitmarsh: Rim failure put Hamilton out
- Hamilton denies Webber a perfect result (Spanish Grand Prix facts and stats)
- Spanish Grand Prix in pictures
- Super start helps Alguersuari to points finish (Spanish Grand Prix analysis)
- Spanish Grand Prix fastest laps
- Webber dominates as Hamilton crashes out of second
- Spanish Grand Prix result
- Championship points after Spain
- Rate the race – Spain
Image (C) Force India F1 Team
James said on 7th May 2010, 12:02
Encouraging to see Schumacher in the top three. Lets hope this translates into a better grid position tomorrow and better race position on Sunday.
F1silverarrows said on 7th May 2010, 12:03
McLaren always go “faster” in practice then everybody else, so how does this make any improvement catching the Red Bulls and Ferrari’s? vettel and mark mostly stay in 5th-8th in practice runs until it’s worth going for.
Who do you think is more under control atm, the guy in the red bull who isn’t trying very hard but gets pole posistion every qualifying stage, or the guy in the McLaren who gets top of the practice times but fails to get close to the Red Bulls in quali.
If you see mark and vettel group together on time sheets in practice 3, 70% of the time it means they are going to do well in both qualifying and the race because they are holding back I reckon.
2009 examples:
•Chinese GP, 3rd practice/ vettel 16th mark 15th
Result in qualifying vettel 1st mark 3rd,
Race result vettel 1st mark 2nd.
•German GP, 3rd practice/ vettel 4th mark 5th
Result in qualifying vettel 4th mark 1st,
Race result vettel 2nd mark 1st.
•Hungary GP, 3rd practice/ vettel 10th mark 9th
Result in qualifying vettel 2nd mark 3rd,
Race result vettel RET mark 3rd.
This is just what i checked up last year sometimes it doesn’t happen so I could be off a bit.
jenson mania said on 7th May 2010, 12:08
Even I am curious as it did not seem that it belonged to his car…….Virgin maybe?
Icthyes said on 7th May 2010, 13:06
Seems like the usual FP1, with McLaren ahead and RBR sandbagging, but two things stand out:
- Hamilton ahead of Button by 0.5 seconds. Could be crucial if even half of that advantage carries over to Q3.
- Klien 0.5 seconds faster than Senna in a car he’s never driven before. I’d like to see Bruno do well, and think he will mature into a better driver in the same way Massa did, but I think this shows the hype over him was quite premature.
zomtec said on 7th May 2010, 13:59
Senna complained about using a friday-driver. Maybe he´ll become HRT´s new friday-driver…
wasiF1 said on 7th May 2010, 15:01
Vitaly Petrov is really impressing me so far between the Rookies.Also nice to see Kamui Kobayashi having a trouble free day with the car but still the reliability trouble with the Ferrari.
Ed said on 7th May 2010, 17:47
Impressive work for Klien to get that far above Senna in his first F1 drive in a few years.
Hopefully he gets another drive somewhere, because otherwise he will be a bit of a wasted talent. Maybe Sauber next year if de la Rosa retires.