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Hamilton tops first Barcelona practice

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the opening practice session for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona

McLaren set the top two times, with Hamilton finishing the 90-minute session half a second clear of team-mate Jenson Button.

Red Bull was the first team to get up to speed and for a while it looked as though Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel would lead the way. But first Michael Schumacher and Button, and then Hamilton, beat the 1m22.0s of the Red Bulls.

Button and Schumacher set their best efforts, 1m21.6s and 1m21.7s just a couple of minutes before Hamilton lapped in 1m21.1.

There were no improvements at the sharp end in the last half hour as team's switched to work on high fuel loads.

Nico Rosberg completed the top six in the second Mercedes, with the Renaults of Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov sandwiching Fernando Alonso's Ferrari from seventh to ninth, while Kamui Kobayashi's Sauber rounded out the top 10.

Paul di Resta set the 13th quickest time in his regular slot as Force India test driver, this week in place of Adrian Sutil for the first session - two places ahead of Vitantonio Liuzzi.

Christian Klien took to the track for the first time this season, taking Karun Chandhok's place for the opening practice session, and finished 22nd - half a second faster than HRT team-mate Bruno Senna.

Heikki Kovalainen was fastest of the new team runners in 18th place, nearly a second ahead of Lotus team-mate Jarno Trulli and under two seconds adrift of the established runners. Kovalainen had to have his throttle replaced during the session after a problem with the throttle sensor hindered his early runs.

Timo Glock got his hands on an evolved version of the Virgin for the first time and finished the session 20th, while team-mate Lucas di Grassi was three tenths further back, 21st, in the old car.

Williams was another team to bring just one new car to Barcelona. Rubens Barrichello was 16th quickest despite a problem with the oil system on the new version, a tenth faster than team-mate Nico Hulkenberg who stopped out on track 10 minutes from the end with what looked like an engine failure on the old car.

Pedro de la Rosa completed just three installation laps before his Sauber was sidelined for the remainder of the session with a gearbox problem.

Pos  Driver         Team                   Time              Laps
 1.  Hamilton       McLaren-Mercedes       1:21.134            21
 2.  Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1:21.672  + 0.538   14
 3.  Schumacher     Mercedes               1:21.716  + 0.582   12
 4.  Webber         Red Bull-Renault       1:22.011  + 0.877   27
 5.  Vettel         Red Bull-Renault       1:22.026  + 0.892   22
 6.  Rosberg        Mercedes               1:22.070  + 0.936   19
 7.  Kubica         Renault                1:22.202  + 1.068   22
 8.  Alonso         Ferrari                1:22.258  + 1.124   19
 9.  Petrov         Renault                1:22.397  + 1.263   23
10.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari         1:22.492  + 1.358   26
11.  Buemi          Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:22.588  + 1.454   24
12.  Massa          Ferrari                1:22.975  + 1.841   22
13.  di Resta       Force India-Mercedes   1:23.030  + 1.896   21
14.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1:23.110  + 1.976   31
15.  Liuzzi         Force India-Mercedes   1:23.284  + 2.150   19
16.  Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth      1:23.312  + 2.178   22
17.  Hulkenberg     Williams-Cosworth      1:23.471  + 2.337   20
18.  Kovalainen     Lotus-Cosworth         1:25.329  + 4.195   17
19.  Trulli         Lotus-Cosworth         1:26.244  + 5.110   20
20.  Glock          Virgin-Cosworth        1:26.340  + 5.206   23
21.  di Grassi      Virgin-Cosworth        1:26.694  + 5.560   24
22.  Klien          HRT-Cosworth           1:27.250  + 6.116   26
23.  Senna          HRT-Cosworth           1:27.752  + 6.618   27
24.  de la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari         No time              3

All Timing Unofficial

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