Webber heads Valencia first practice

Mark Webber continued Red Bull’s dominance of 2011 so far, by leading first practice for the European Grand Prix.

The Red Bull was 8 tenths faster than Vitaly Petrov, whose Renault was marginally ahead of Fernando Alonso.

Webber’s teammate Vettel did no low fuel runs, and was 16th. An impressive session for Renault was shown with Nick Heidfeld 5th.

Jaime Alguersuari in 10th headed Daniel Ricciardo in 12th by 2 tenths, as the Australian stood in for Sebastien Buemi.

A dusty and slippery track surface caught Nico Hulkenberg out, sliding under braking at Turn 12, and damaging his Force India’s left rear section. Massa, Kobayashi, Kovalainen, Schumacher and Maldonado all had off-track excursions as the session continued.

A spin by Timo Glock in the final few minutes ruled out any last-gasp improvements from the rest of the field, as his Virgin was beached in the middle of the track.

Karun Chandhok was the only driver not to set a time, as his Lotus was stuck in second gear.

Times from FP1:

 1.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1.40.403 	    22
 2.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault               1.41.227   0.824   20
 3.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1.41.239   0.836   22
 4.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1.41.510   1.107   23
 5.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault               1.41.580   1.177   24
 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1.41.758   1.355   23
 7.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1.41.926   1.523   14
 8.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes  1.41.955   1.552   20
 9.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1.42.043   1.640   22
10.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1.42.216   1.813   29
11.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1.42.270   1.867   26
12.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1.42.412   2.009   27
13.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth     1.42.704   2.301   23
14.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1.42.738   2.335   20
15.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth     1.42.841   2.438   28
16.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1.42.941   2.538   21
17.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1.43.201   2.798   18
18.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1.43.769   3.366    7
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault         1.44.136   3.733   17
20.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth       1.45.026   4.623   17
21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth       1.45.221   4.818   19
22.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth          1.45.494   5.091   24
23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1.46.926   6.523   27
24.  Karun Chandhok        Lotus-Renault         		     2