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Vettel leads first morning of Pirelli test

Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel returned to his familiar place at the top of the timesheet on the first morning of Pirelli tyre testing in Abu Dhabi

The 23-year-old leaped to the top with half an hour to go, knocking Ferrari driver Felipe Massa off top spot.

Vettel's best time, a 1m40.816s, was 1.5 seconds off his pole time for Sunday's race, although as this is the first time teams have been able to run the Pirelli development rubber, their focus is on understanding the tyre rather than chasing laptimes.

Renault's Robert Kubia was third fastest, less than two-tenths off the pace and just under half a second ahead of Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi. The Japanese will resume this afternoon, before handing over to new team-mate Sergio Perez tomorrow afternoon.

Gary Paffett, performing test duties for McLaren on both days in place of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, was fifth fastest. He also ran on the second day of the tyre test, ensuring the team has the most up-to-date benchmark data to compare the new Pirellis to the Bridgestones used during the season. He completed the most laps - 49 - during the session.

Jaime Alguersuari set the seventh fastest time, 0.664secs slower than Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg. The Spaniard was the first driver to take to the track this morning, making him the first regular driver to experience the new rubber.

Williams spent much of the session completing tests designed to understand the difference the Pirelli rubber makes to the aerodynamic performance of the car, running to a strict top speed limit. This data will then be compared with the baseline data accumulated during the recent young driver test to better understand how the Pirellis change the car.

Barrichello did set some quicker laps towards the end of the morning session and the team plans to concentrate more on the performance of the tyres this afternoon.

Force India driver Adrian Sutil completed only 20 laps before an exhaust failure forced him to stop. The team is currently working to replace the exhaust system and will return to the track this afternoon, this time with test driver Paul di Resta at the wheel.

Virgin's Timo Glock was the fastest new team driver ahead of Lotus's Heikki Kovalainen and Pastor Maldonado, who is running on both days for HRT.

Given teams have yet to fine-tune their set-ups for the new rubber, and most will have focused on running mid-levels of fuel, the laptimes posted so far indicate that Pirelli's single-lap pace will be comparable to that of the Bridgestones.

There will be another three and a half hours of testing this afternoon.


Pos Driver                 Team           Time       Laps
 1. Sebastian Vettel       Red Bull       1m40.861s    34
 2. Felipe Massa           Ferrari        1m40.913s    29
 3. Robert Kubica          Renault        1m41.032s    25
 4. Kamui Kobayashi        Sauber         1m41.466s    33
 5. Gary Paffett           McLaren        1m41.588s    49
 6. Nico Rosberg           Mercedes       1m41.978s    40
 7. Jaime Alguersuari      Toro Rosso     1m42.642s    33
 8. Rubens Barrichello     Williams       1m42.655s    44
 9. Adrian Sutil           Force India    1m42.859s    20
10. Timo Glock             Virgin         1m45.057s    41
11. Heikki Kovalainen      Lotus          1m46.201s    42
12. Pastor Maldonado       Hispania       1m46.534s    46

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