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Red cars dominate in Spain

There was little to be found in the way of surprises as the flag fell for the end of first practice at Catalunya, with Ferrari emerging comfortably ahead.

Such is the regularity of testing at the Barcelona circuit that predictions can generally be accurately made, and this morning was no exception.

Kimi Raikkonen came home fastest with a lap time of 1:20.649, a mere few thousandths quicker than team mate Felipe Massa as the F2008 eclipsed next best man Lewis Hamilton – in the McLaren MP4-23 – by almost half a second.

As expected BMW looked best of the rest with Robert Kubica slotting into fourth, the blue and white car another few tenths down on Hamilton. With the second McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen next – two tenths back – and the Renault pairing of Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet supplying the nearest to an eyebrow-raiser in sixth and seventh, the final runners under 1:22.

David Coulthard followed the Renault pair for Red Bull with the top ten rounded out by Nick Heidfeld in the second BMW and Jenson Button in the slowly improving Honda.

Further down the order Force India showed some promise with Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella 16th and 17th and within a couple of tenths of such as Toyota and Williams. In fact, 11th (Glock) to 18th (Barrichello) were covered by just three tenths of a second such is the level of the fight in the midfield.

The Super Aguri pair – a welcome sight after a week of doubt – brought up the rear.

More coverage from the second session shortly.

Written: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:59:46