Spanish GP: Fernando Alonso leads damp first practice

It was only coming into the final quarter of an hour that slicks were viable, and even then there were sufficient slippery patches to limit the relevance of the laps that drivers managed.

But with so many developments to try, teams were less reticent about coming out early than is often the case in wet sessions.

The Spanish crowd therefore had a decent amount of track activity to enjoy all morning, and would also have appreciated seeing home hero Alonso on top of the times for much of the session.

Alonso spent a while as the fastest man during the wet running, though he tumbled down the order as conditions improved.

Going into the closing seconds, his Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa was the latest to burst to the top of a constantly fluctuating timing screen as everyone got up to speed on slicks.

But Alonso finished the morning with a flourish, setting a 1m25.252s lap to beat his team-mate by 0.203 seconds.

Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne had starred by being the first man to get slicks to work, and he remained consistently up front for the rest of the session, ending up third.

Romain Grosjean had an early spin into the hairpin at the end of the back straight, before finishing the session fourth for Lotus.

Adrian Sutil's Force India, Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes and Valtteri Bottas's Williams were next up in an inevitably shuffled order, with Kimi Raikkonen, Nico Rosberg and Paul di Resta completing the top 10.

Jenson Button was the only driver not to attempt a flying lap, though he did six exploratory tours in the updated McLaren.

Red Bull also hung back when the track dried, with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber at the foot of the top 20.


Pos Driver                Team                   Time      Gap       Laps
 1. Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m25.252s            20
 2. Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m25.455s  + 0.203s  20
 3. Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m25.667s  + 0.415s  25
 4. Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1m26.042s  + 0.790s  21
 5. Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1m26.212s  + 0.960s  24
 6. Lewis Hamilton        Mercedes               1m26.374s  + 1.122s  19
 7. Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault       1m26.456s  + 1.204s  20
 8. Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m26.614s  + 1.362s  21
 9. Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m26.621s  + 1.369s  21
10. Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m26.755s  + 1.503s  16
11. Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m26.940s  + 1.688s  26
12. Nico Hulkenberg       Sauber-Ferrari         1m27.061s  + 1.809s  24
13. Sergio Perez          McLaren-Mercedes       1m27.135s  + 1.883s   6
14. Esteban Gutierrez     Sauber-Ferrari         1m27.250s  + 1.998s  26
15. Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m27.576s  + 2.324s  24
16. Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault       1m28.373s  + 3.121s  14
17. Giedo van der Garde   Caterham-Renault       1m28.600s  + 3.348s  19
18. Jules Bianchi         Marussia-Cosworth      1m28.887s  + 3.635s  14
19. Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m29.457s  + 4.205s  11
20. Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m29.473s  + 4.221s  21
21. Rodolfo Gonzalez      Marussia-Cosworth      1m30.314s  + 5.062s  13
22. Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       no time               6