Webber tops first Spanish GP practice

In a session taking place under very clear skies, Australian Webber set a time of 1m25.142s early on and stayed unchallenged for the remainder of the 90 minutes.

Webber was over a second quicker than Vettel, the championship leader having a low-key start to the weekend in the second Red Bull.

Mercedes GP's Nico Rosberg was third quickest, with local hero Fernando Alonso in fourth in the quickest of the Ferraris. Team-mate Felipe Massa finished down in 16th position.

Rookie Sergio Perez enjoyed a strong start to the weekend with the fifth fastest time in the Sauber, ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren and Michael Schumacher in the second Mercedes.

Massa was the first driver to complete a timed lap early in the session, but was soon outpaced by Rosberg and Schumacher, although neither posted a significant time as teams carried out installation laps to check their newer upgrades.

Perez jumped to the top of the times some 20 minutes into the session, the Sauber driver's 1m27.512s staying as the benchmark for some time until Webber bettered that by around half a second with less than an hour to go.

On his following lap, however, the Australian went nearly two second quicker, becoming the first man to lap in the 1m25s, improving even more minutes later after going through the pits.

Pastor Maldonado was the protagonist of the first and only incident of the day when he went off the track at Turn 12, the Williams driver avoiding contact but having to get out of the car so his car could be recovered from the gravel.

The Venezuelan, however, was unable to return to action in the morning.


Pos  Driver                Team                  Time              Laps
 1.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m25.142s    	     27 
 2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m26.149s  + 1.007  20
 3.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m26.379s  + 1.237  29
 4.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m26.480s  + 1.338  27
 5.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari        1m26.738s  + 1.596  26
 6.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes      1m26.988s  + 1.846  19
 7.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes              1m27.016s  + 1.874  32
 8.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault               1m27.132s  + 1.990  21
 9.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m27.138s  + 1.996  22
10.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth     1m27.212s  + 2.070  20
11.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault               1m27.241s  + 2.099  22
12.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m27.471s  + 2.329  23
13.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth     1m28.005s  + 2.863  11
14.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m28.027s  + 2.885  26
15.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes  1m28.163s  + 3.021  22
16.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m28.654s  + 3.512  28
17.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari        1m28.819s  + 3.677  23
18.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m28.995s  + 3.853  9
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault         1m29.231s  + 4.089  21
20.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth       1m30.896s  + 5.754  18
21.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth       1m31.235s  + 6.093  24
22.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth          1m31.268s  + 6.126  23
23.  Jarno Trulli          Lotus-Renault         1m31.418s  + 6.276  12
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth          1m32.106s  + 6.964  25

All Timing Unofficial