Lap times increased by four seconds at the Circuit de Catalunya compared to 2010 in the first practice session.
Mark Webber’s best time of 1’25.142 was four seconds slower than the best time set in the same session last year.
Despite favourable conditions it was also some way off the pace seen in testing this year, when Michael Schumacher set a 1’21.268.
A new kerb has been installed at turn seven to stop drivers cutting the corner.
Teams were using Pirelli’s revised hard compound tyre in the first practice session this morning. The tyre is designed to be more durable.
Here is all the data from the first practice session:
Longest stint comparison
- There were few long stints in the first practice session as teams tended to focus on testing their upgrades
- Webber did a nine-lap run on the hard tyres and got progressively quicker during it
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | |
Sebastian Vettel | 90.666 | 89.912 | 89.5 | 89.659 | 89.649 | 89.564 | ||||
Mark Webber | 89.377 | 89.423 | 89.74 | 89.328 | 89.262 | 89.221 | 89.316 | 88.814 | 88.654 | |
Lewis Hamilton | 88.696 | 89.239 | 89.414 | |||||||
Jenson Button | 88.367 | 92.316 | 87.867 | 91.764 | 91.067 | 88.739 | 89.94 | |||
Fernando Alonso | 88.082 | 87.341 | 86.707 | 101.414 | 95.459 | |||||
Felipe Massa | 89.896 | 93.343 | 88.986 | 97.34 | 88.654 | 89.585 | 100.075 | 103.081 | 108.213 | |
Michael Schumacher | 91.28 | 87.016 | 87.178 | 90.747 | 87.428 | |||||
Nico Rosberg | 97.77 | 101.686 | 92.029 | 86.554 | 87.585 | 86.514 | ||||
Nick Heidfeld | 89.422 | 88.789 | 88.989 | 87.915 | 90.93 | 87.132 | ||||
Vitaly Petrov | 89.27 | 90.724 | 88.322 | 87.893 | 96.222 | 89.254 | 87.241 | 87.754 | ||
Rubens Barrichello | 93.624 | 89.368 | 96.27 | 87.899 | 87.212 | |||||
Pastor Maldonado | 91.958 | 89.153 | 97.481 | 88.005 | 88.366 | |||||
Nico Hulkenberg | 91.23 | 93.463 | 94.144 | 90.714 | ||||||
Adrian Sutil | 97.08 | 89.254 | 88.657 | 88.075 | 88.94 | 88.764 | 89.171 | 89.543 | 89.152 | 90.638 |
Kamui Kobayashi | 90.605 | 88.879 | 89.33 | 88.819 | 88.963 | 90.039 | ||||
Sergio Perez | 88.535 | 86.954 | 97.64 | 87.042 | 86.738 | |||||
Daniel Ricciardo | 90.829 | 87.709 | 87.471 | 87.941 | 88.507 | |||||
Jaime Alguersuari | 90.47 | 89.385 | 88.995 | 89.08 | 89.713 | |||||
Heikki Kovalainen | 91.429 | 89.887 | 89.231 | 93.597 | 89.34 | |||||
Jarno Trulli | 93.497 | 92.258 | 91.892 | 92.527 | 91.684 | 91.418 | ||||
Narain Karthikeyan | 97.36 | 93.739 | 96.173 | 93.302 | ||||||
Vitantonio Liuzzi | 93.16 | 99.862 | 92.188 | 91.752 | 96.208 | 91.268 | ||||
Timo Glock | 92.245 | 91.646 | 96.421 | 92.676 | 97.853 | 91.527 | ||||
Jerome d’Ambrosio | 92.487 | 93.016 | 91.155 | 90.896 | 92.039 |
Ultimate lap times
An ultimate lap is a driver’s best three sectors combined.
- There’s further cause for concern for the teams at the back of the grid as Red Bull clearly have pace in hand and could raise the 107% bar even higher.
- Neither HRT driver had any time in hand in this session as far as we can tell from the sectors.
- However when it comes to Q1 with the front runners likely to only use hard tyres and those at the rear of the grid able to use softs, this should help them make the cut.
Complete practice times
- Both Sauber drivers were able to improve right at the end of the session despite having put over 20 laps on their tyres.
- Michael Schumacher lowered his time with 30 laps on his tyres, showing how well the new compound holds up.
Speed trap
- Rubens Barrichello was fastest through the speed trap.
- McLaren and Red Bull were well in the bottom half of the straight-line speeds.
# | Driver | Car | Engine | Max speed | Gap | |
1 | 11 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams | Cosworth | 322.7 | |
2 | 16 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber | Ferrari | 322.6 | 0.1 |
3 | 12 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams | Cosworth | 322.2 | 0.5 |
4 | 8 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | Mercedes | 321.9 | 0.8 |
5 | 7 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes | Mercedes | 321.8 | 0.9 |
6 | 6 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | Ferrari | 320.5 | 2.2 |
7 | 14 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India | Mercedes | 319.9 | 2.8 |
8 | 5 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | Ferrari | 319.7 | 3 |
9 | 15 | Adrian Sutil | Force India | Mercedes | 319.7 | 3 |
10 | 10 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | Renault | 319.5 | 3.2 |
11 | 9 | Nick Heidfeld | Renault | Renault | 319.4 | 3.3 |
12 | 17 | Sergio Perez | Sauber | Ferrari | 319.1 | 3.6 |
13 | 19 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso | Ferrari | 316.9 | 5.8 |
14 | 18 | Daniel Ricciardo | Toro Rosso | Ferrari | 316.9 | 5.8 |
15 | 3 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren | Mercedes | 315.4 | 7.3 |
16 | 25 | Jerome d’Ambrosio | Virgin | Cosworth | 312.9 | 9.8 |
17 | 24 | Timo Glock | Virgin | Cosworth | 312.7 | 10 |
18 | 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | Renault | 312.4 | 10.3 |
19 | 20 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus | Renault | 312.4 | 10.3 |
20 | 21 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus | Renault | 312.1 | 10.6 |
21 | 2 | Mark Webber | Red Bull | Renault | 311.3 | 11.4 |
22 | 4 | Jenson Button | McLaren | Mercedes | 309.3 | 13.4 |
23 | 23 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | HRT | Cosworth | 307.8 | 14.9 |
24 | 22 | Narain Karthikeyan | HRT | Cosworth | 307.6 | 15.1 |
2011 Spanish Grand Prix
Image © Force India F1 Team
sw6569 (@sw6569)
20th May 2011, 11:46
With Schumacher lowering his time so late with the tyres, I think its also fair to say that he was not really pushing them either.
There is a lot more time to come yet, I expect to see qualy times a good 3 seconds faster than these
Fixy (@)
20th May 2011, 13:29
As the testing times prove, there is still more to do to go faster.
Kiril Varbanov
20th May 2011, 11:51
Very well put, mr. Keith Collantine. It clearly shows no big changes, Red Bull fast in the corners, and slow on the max speed. I expect Mclaren to be faster, however.
Icthyes (@icthyes)
20th May 2011, 11:58
Interesting that the McLarens have gone quite low on straight-line speed. Perhaps they might go for glory in qualifying and try to control their race from thereon? Hamilton suffered last time out in Turkey because of track position.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
20th May 2011, 13:43
Their over-all times are decent when you consider the straight line speed. This may be an early sign they have some decent new aero.
Bäremans
20th May 2011, 12:16
A Keith stated above, Schumacher did a 1.21.2 here in winter testing. Today the cars are developed further and it is a lot hotter.
quali times will be much quicker than just 3 seconds.
Wouldn’t be surprised if pole time is 1.20.xxx
geo132 (@geo132)
20th May 2011, 12:17
Do we know what happened with Ferrari? I remember reading one of their tweets where both drivers complained about lack of grip. Was there any technical issue or something?
Tyson Evans (@bobtehblob)
20th May 2011, 12:27
I’m wondering the same thing, Massa was miles off the pace
verstappen (@verstappen)
20th May 2011, 12:26
In this graph, Mercedes is looking good. Looking forward to FP2 analysis, to see if they can maintain their pace.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
20th May 2011, 13:46
Yea it does look ok. We usually get a few more laps out of a stint so it’s not easy to compare it to previous sessions (relative pace and consisency that is).
Luca
20th May 2011, 12:35
Hi everybody,
how can I read the long stint comparision graph?
In particular, what represent the y-axis?
Thanks!
Owl
20th May 2011, 12:37
Time (seconds) is the y-axis and lap number (for that stint) is the x-axis.
Icthyes (@icthyes)
20th May 2011, 12:38
The y-axis is lap time in seconds, the x-axis is the lap number on their run.
So for example, Massa did a 1:43.08 on Lap 8 of his 9-lap run
Burnout (@burnout)
20th May 2011, 12:38
I know you can’t read too much into practice times, but Kovalainen is only 2 tenths off Alguersuari’s best. How high do you think Lotus will finish this weekend?
Icthyes (@icthyes)
20th May 2011, 12:41
Ricciardo was 1.5 seconds faster, so it may not be that representative. Though f their upgrades work I think Lotus might be able to beat someone on pace this time.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th May 2011, 12:42
So does it look like the new harder tyres last long with relatively good pace as well? Or is a good part of the 4 seconds difference made by that tyre instead of running the softs?
Surely Red Bull is well ahead, as they probably were in winter testing as well as last years race.
Seems both Mercedes and Ferrari as about the same as they were last round. Hard to tell what McLaren is doing, they are holding something back, I guess.
Williams will be relieved to be a bit closer to the pace here, lets hope they keep that up.
BBT
20th May 2011, 12:48
Ah new hard tyres that explains it.
Mclaren were purely evaluating the new parts.
I expect Mclaren or Merc to be top in FP2
lachy
21st May 2011, 4:58
ricciardo consistantly doing well in practice and outdoing his team mate… would love to see him get a race seat.