Alonso leads Spanish first practice for first time in 2012

Alonso put Ferrari on top

Fernando Alonso gave Ferrari their first top spot in an official F1 session this year.

The Spaniard pleased the home crowd with a 1:24.430. Sebastian Vettel briefly went fastest after the first half hour, but settled for 2nd, ahead of Kamui Kobayashi.

McLaren ran a new higher nose on their MP4-27, with Jenson Button 4th and Lewis Hamilton 8th, the latter complaining of understeer on his car. Button lamented that it was difficult to turn the tyres up to temperature.

Valtteri Bottas was 5th, over a second ahead of Pastor Maldonado back in 17th. Force India ran a batch of new updates, with Nico Hulkenberg entering the top 10. Jules Bianchi took over the second car, ending the session in 18th place.

Alexander Rossi tested for Caterham, his first F1 practice session, and ended up 21st, a second behind Vitaly Petrov. Dani Clos drove for HRT, and was 2.5 seconds off Pedro de la Rosa.

Times from FP1:

 1.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1:24.430           20
 2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1:24.808  +0.378   18
 3.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1:24.912  +0.482   28
 4.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1:24.996  +0.566   24
 5.  Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault       1:25.120  +0.690   24
 6.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1:25.187  +0.757   15
 7.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1:25.217  +0.787   16
 8.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1:25.252  +0.822   20
 9.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1:25.285  +0.855   29
10.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1:25.339  +0.909   24
11.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:25.367  +0.937   22
12.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1:25.433  +1.003   21
13.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1:25.539  +1.109   23
14.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1:25.607  +1.177   20
15.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1:25.918  +1.488   19
16.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:26.226  +1.796   24
17.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1:26.297  +1.867   18
18.  Jules Bianchi         Force India-Mercedes   1:26.630  +2.200   21
19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1:27.475  +3.045   20
20.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1:28.267  +3.837   21
21.  Alexander Rossi       Caterham-Renault       1:28.448  +4.018   25
22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1:28.633  +4.203   22
23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1:29.107  +4.677   19
24.  Dani Clos             HRT-Cosworth           1:31.618  +7.188   19

About these ads