McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton sprung a surprise by running Red Bull close for the fastest time in practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Hamilton split the Red Bulls, with Mark Webber setting the pace just 0.039 seconds faster than the McLaren.
It was an encouraging sign for McLaren, who have brought a number of new parts to Barcelona to improve performance.
Hamilton’s team-mate Jenson Button was fourth, ahead of the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso.
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F1 Standings Ahead of Spanish Grand Prix
Formula 1: Mark Webber Fastest in First Practice at Barcelona
Formula 1: Spanish Grand Prix - First Practice Results
All the teams have brought new parts to this race as they seek to enhance their competitiveness, and the first indications are that McLaren may have made the most progress. BBC Sport
Fernando Alonso was fifth ahead of the Mercedes pair of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher, with Rosberg again around 0.4s quicker than his team-mate. Felipe Massa, Kamui Kobayashi and Nick Heidfeld were the only other drivers to get within two seconds of Webber’s time.
At the start of the session the drivers were greeted with a much higher track temperature which helped them get the most out of the harder compound that Pirelli has introduced this weekend. Alonso set the early pace and was immediately quicker than he had been in the morning. His time was soon beaten by Hamilton, before Vitaly Petrov was the first of the top five teams to use the soft tyre and go quickest.
Times started to drop rapidly as everyone went out for low fuel runs on the soft tyre, and the average gain was 2 seconds per lap, meaning few drivers will be able to have the luxury of getting through the first qualifying session on hard tyres. ESPN F1
Renault’s early switch to softs had given it a few minutes in the limelight mid-session, but by the end Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov were down in 10th and 12th, either side of the second Sauber of Sergio Perez.
Further back, Lotus’ upgrade package looked like it was paying dividends as Heikki Kovalainen beat Adrian Sutil’s Force India and got within 0.3s of the German’s team-mate Paul di Resta.
Like practice one, the session proved relatively uneventful. Both Massa and Hispania’s Tonio Liuzzi visited the gravel, and Hamilton, Alonso and Button had traffic frustrations with Narain Karthikeyan, Jaime Alguersuari and Petrov respectively. Yahoo! Eurosport UK
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