Kovalainen tops times at Valencia

The Finn set a best time that was just more than six tenths of a second faster than Felipe Massa's Ferrari, with world champion Kimi Raikkonen a further two tenths of a second adrift.

Massa caused one red flag when he stopped on track at 10.16am when a temperature sensor warning light came on.

Behind fourth fastest Lewis Hamilton, Kazuki Nakajima continued to show the strong form from the Williams team in the hybrid car while Nico Rosberg made more progress witht the new FW30.

Nakajima ended the day one tenth faster than former world champion Fernando Alonso in the new Renault R28.

Eighth fastest Mark Webber showed some improved speed from the new Red Bull Racing RB4, but the Australian suffered reliability issues. He caused two red flags during the day, stopping on track at 10.49am and 2.35pm.

"I'm happy with the new car," said Webber. "Today has been encouraging and, so far, it seems to be a big step forward from last year in terms of reliability and speed, which is great.

"Now we need to work with what we've got and get it as fast as possible before Melbourne. We've got a big four weeks coming up."

BMW Sauber's Robert Kubia continued work on trying to overcome the balance issues that have hindered the speed of the new F1.08 to set the 12th fastest time, with Toyota's Timo Glock 11th quickest as he worked on improving the TF108.

Rubens Barrichello completed 31 laps in the new Honda RA108 but was unable to challenge the new cars ahead of him, setting the 16th fastest time of the day.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                       Time     Laps
 1.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes     (B)   1:11.000   92  *
 2.  Massa         Ferrari              (B)   1:11.662   81  *
 3.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              (B)   1:11.850  108  *
 4.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     (B)   1:12.076  115  *
 5.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota      (B)   1:12.255   93  
 6.  Alonso        Renault              (B)   1:12.360  111  *
 7.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      (B)   1:12.493  117  *
 8.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault     (B)   1:12.594   87  *
 9.  Heidfeld      BMW-Sauber           (B)   1:12.976   51  
10.  Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)   1:13.015   63
11.  Glock         Toyota               (B)   1:13.129   95  *
12.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber           (B)   1:13.230  121  * 
13.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   (B)   1:13.307  118
14.  Sutil         Force India-Ferrari  (B)   1:13.409   98
15.  Trulli        Toyota               (B)   1:13.547   96  *
16.  Barrichello   Honda                (B)   1:14.588   36  *
17.  Kogure        Honda                (B)   1:16.954   40

* 2008 car

All Timing Unofficial