Davidson goes fastest at Jerez

Davidson, at the wheel of the interim SAF1 car, posted a best time of 1:19.618 after a massive 145 laps of the Spanish track.

The Super Aguri driver carried out tyre testing, completing long runs, and also worked on trying out new software. He finished ahead of Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella, who was over a tenth slower in the new R27 unveiled this week.

The Renault team caused two red flags during the day as they continued with the initial development of their new car.

Fisichella stopped on track in the afternoon while teammate Heikki Kovalainen forced the session to be stopped early in the morning when a trail of smoke came out from his car at the end of the pitlane.

"We had another good day with the R27 as we started looking at some set-up changes, and understanding the handling," said Fisichella. "We made improvements through the day, and the progress confirmed the potential I could feel in the package during our reliability work yesterday.

"I think we have had a very encouraging week so far, although there are still some problems to fix, like with any new car. But that is what winter testing is all about: every problem we find here, is one that we don't have to worry about in Melbourne in two months' time."

Kovalainen, on the hand, endured a frustrating day after being hit by electrical gremlins early on. 

"It was a slightly frustrating day for me because we didn't really start our work properly until this afternoon, and after that our focus was to put miles on the car," the Finn said.

"So not a perfect day for me, but at this stage, the important thing is to get a feel for the handling, and make sure the package is reliable - it's not about setting the stopwatch on fire.

"We had a good end to the day with some longer runs, so hopefully we can carry on our momentum tomorrow in order to catch up on the programme."

Williams driver Nico Rosberg, taking over from teammate Kazuki Nakajima at the wheel of the interim Toyota-powered car, caused the final red flag of the day when he stopped on track 20 minutes from the end of the session.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time     Laps
 1.  Davidson      Super Aguri-Honda    (B)  1:19.628  145
 2.  Fisichella    Renault              (B)  1:19.766   61
 3.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:20.059   75
 4.  Kovalainen    Renault              (B)  1:21.029   52

All Timing Unofficial