Klien given Superlicence 10 minutes before practice

Christian Klien almost didn't make it to Friday Practice 1

It turned out today that HRT test and reserve driver Christian Klien was only granted his Superlicence 10 minutes before the start of Friday Practice 1.

The Austrian driver was being offered to drive in FP1 as part of being the team’s second reserve driver, alongside Sakon Yamamoto. However, his debut drive for the team nearly didn’t happen at all, as Christian explains:

"It was a bit exciting today as I got my Superlicense only ten 
minutes before the start of the first practice session! 
Fortunately, everything had been prepared perfectly and then I was 
allowed to jump into the car.

I had 90 great minutes in the car. It was my first time in a Formula 
1 car since January last year and felt perfect right away; I was 
able to feel the limits of the car and posted constant times, which 
will help the engineers - I was able to give them important feedback 
to improve, in terms of setup, and my work with top teams will help 
them."

I’m glad that Klien is being given a chance to drive in F1 again, but he still needs a good car to be able to prove himself. However, the fact that he beat Bruno Senna by an entire half a second in only 90 minutes of practice shows what potential he has.

The problem is the testing ban. With this, test and reserve drivers, especially young drivers, will be unable to get attention for themselves and therefore struggle to get race drive positions. One idea I had would be a “reserve driver test”, once or twice a year, where the test and reserve drivers would test and develop the car. This would help the teams with their development, and also give a chance for reserve drivers to show what they are worth. I’ll write more on this idea after this weekend.

Spanish Grand Prix Friday Practice in pictures

Here are some pictures from today’s Friday Practice sessions:

Red Bull lock out Spanish Friday Practice 2

Sebastian Vettel in Friday Practice 2 in Spain today

The Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber lead the second practice session for the Spanish Grand Prix today. Nobody was near these two, as the closest competitor was half a second behind.

Vettel was the only driver who got under the 1.20 minute mark, and was 2 tenths ahead of Mark Webber. Michael Schumacher was again 3rd, half a second behind Webber. Fernando Alonso improved in this session to get 4th, while Lewis Hamilton was another 4 tenths behind the Spaniard.

Robert Kubica was 6th, followed by Nico Rosberg, Felipe Massa, Jenson Button and Adrian Sutil, to top off the top 10. Pedro de la Rosa was actually able to set a lap time this session, and finished 11th. With 37 laps, he set the most laps (alongside Sebastien Buemi) this session. Vitantonio Liuzzi was 12th.

Kamui Kobayashi was 13th, Sebastien Buemi was 14th, Rubens Barrichello was 15th, and Vitaly Petrov was 16th. Jaime Alguersuari and Nico Hulkenberg were quite uncompetitive this session, getting 17th and 18th. Nico was 1.4 seconds behind Jaime.

Again, the Lotuses of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen were the best of the new teams, once again only 4 seconds off the frontrunners’ pace. Lucas di Grassi was 21st, while both HRT drivers beat Timo Glock. Karun Chandhok was one tenth faster than his team-mate Senna. This was despite Karun reporting brake problems, after repeatedly locking up and running wide at Turn 10, La Caixa. Glock was a further half a second behind Bruno.

Times from Friday Practice 2:

	Driver	Team	Fastest lap	Difference	# of laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1.19.965		24
2	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1.20.175	0.21	35
3	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1.20.757	0.792	28
4	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1.20.819	0.854	30
5	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1.21.191	1.226	23
6	Robert Kubica	Renault	1.21.202	1.237	36
7	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1.21.271	1.306	27
8	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1.21.302	1.337	25
9	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1.21.364	1.399	26
10	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1.21.518	1.553	32
11	Pedro de la Rosa	Sauber-Ferrari	1.21.672	1.707	37
12	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India-Mercedes	1.21.904	1.939	32
13	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1.21.931	1.966	29
14	Sebastien Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1.22.184	2.219	37
15	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1.22.192	2.227	33
16	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1.22.435	2.47	35
17	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1.22.449	2.484	34
18	Nico Hulkenberg	Williams-Cosworth	1.23.765	3.8	7
19	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Cosworth	1.24.209	4.244	26
20	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Cosworth	1.24.894	4.929	22
21	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin-Cosworth	1.25.066	5.101	30
22	Karun Chandhok	HRT-Cosworth	1.25.972	6.007	23
23	Bruno Senna	HRT-Cosworth	1.26.152	6.187	25
24	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	1.26.596	6.631	21

Hamilton tops Spanish Friday Practice 1

Lewis Hamilton in Friday Practice 1 in Spain today

Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button led the first practice session of the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend. Jenson was a full half a second behind his team-mate.

Michael Schumacher was 3rd in the revised Mercedes with its new airbox, which will be put up in the photo section later. He led the session early on, but was demoted by the McLarens as the session went on. He remained only 5 hundreths of a second behind Button though. Mark Webber was 4th, 3 tenths back from Schumacher. Sebastian Vettel was 5th, a further 2 hundreths behind.

Nico Rosberg and Robert Kubica were 6th and 7th. Fernando Alonso was 8th, running a blown rear wing. He also did back-to-back to back tests with the unblown rear wing settings.Vitaly Petrov did very well to finish 9th, only 2 tenths behind his team-mate. Kamui Kobayashi finished off the top ten.

Sebastien Buemi and Felipe Massa were 11th and 12th, while Paul di Resta beat his team-mate by getting 13th. Behind them, it was Jaime Alguersuari, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg in the top 17.

Lotus, and Heikki Kovalainen in particular, made a good step forward by only being 4 seconds off Hamilton’s pace today. Heikki was 18th, while Jarno Trulli was a further second back in 19th place. As usual, the two Virgins were behind them, with Timo Glock leading Lucas di Grassi. Timo was the first out on track, but his left turning vane broke on his first lap out, and he spent an hour in the pits.

However, there was a surprise at HRT. Christian Klien, who hasn’t raced an F1 car since Britain 2007, beat team-mate Bruno Senna by half a second. I told you he needed an opportunity. Pedro de la Rosa was unable to set a time, because of a gearbox failure, and finished at the back.

Times from Friday Practice 1:

	Driver	Team	Fastest lap	Difference	# of laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1.21.134		21
2	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1.21.672	0.538	14
3	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1.21.716	0.582	12
4	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1.22.011	0.877	27
5	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1.22.026	0.892	22
6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1.22.070	0.936	19
7	Robert Kubica	Renault	1.22.202	1.068	22
8	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1.22.258	1.124	19
9	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1.22.397	1.263	23
10	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1.22.492	1.358	26
11	Sebastien Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1.22.588	1.454	24
12	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1.22.975	1.841	22
13	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1.23.030	1.896	21
14	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1.23.110	1.976	31
15	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India-Mercedes	1.23.284	2.15	19
16	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1.23.312	2.178	22
17	Nico Hulkenberg	Williams-Cosworth	1.23.471	2.337	20
18	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Cosworth	1.25.329	4.195	17
19	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Cosworth	1.26.244	5.11	20
20	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	1.26.340	5.206	23
21	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin-Cosworth	1.26.694	5.56	24
22	Christian Klien	HRT-Cosworth	1.27.250	6.116	26
23	Bruno Senna	HRT-Cosworth	1.27.752	6.618	27
24	Pedro de la Rosa	Sauber-Ferrari			3