Grosjean tops first Barcelona practice

Grosjean's 1m27.638s was enough to put him more than 0.6s clear of his team-mate, and kept the Frenchman at the top despite him losing drive and having to pull off to the side of the circuit with four minutes of the session remaining.

Arden rookie Edoardo Mortara jumped up to third right at the end, just edging him clear of Racing Engineering's Lucas di Grassi.

While di Grassi was running towards the front early on, it was a muted start to some of the weekend for some of the other series veterans. Luca Filippi was left towards the bottom of the timing screen after only completing a handful of laps, while Alberto Valerio was a spectator for much of the morning following a spin in his Piquet car.

Still, he got more track time than recently-crowned GP2 Asia champion Kamui Kobayashi, who was unable to complete a single flying lap due to mechanical problems.

Pos Driver                 Team                   Time           Gap
 1. Romain Grosjean        Barwa                  1m27.638s
 2. Vitaly Petrov          Barwa                  1m28.282s   +0.644
 3. Edoardo Mortara        Arden                  1m28.624s   +0.986
 4. Lucas di Grassi        Racing Engineering     1m28.684s   +1.046
 5. Pastor Maldonado       ART                    1m28.695s   +1.057
 6. Roldan Rodriguez       Piquet                 1m29.045s   +1.407
 7. Sergio Perez           Arden                  1m29.065s   +1.427
 8. Nico Hulkenberg        ART                    1m29.142s   +1.504
 9. Javier Villa           Super Nova             1m29.302s   +1.664
10. Alvaro Parente         Ocean                  1m29.327s   +1.689
11. Diego Nunes            iSport                 1m29.512s   +1.874
12. Jerome D'Ambrosio      DAMS                   1m29.621s   +1.983
13. Daniel Clos            Racing Engineering     1m29.651s   +2.013
14. Davide Valsecchi       Durango                1m29.702s   +2.064
15. Davide Rigon           Trident                1m30.060s   +2.422
16. Karun Chandhok         Ocean                  1m30.124s   +2.486
17. Giedo van der Garde    iSport                 1m30.208s   +2.570
18. Andi Zuber             FMS                    1m30.264s   +2.626
19. Luiz Razia             FMS                    1m30.555s   +2.917
20. Nelson Panciatici      Durango                1m30.885s   +3.247
21. Giacomo Ricci          DPR                    1m31.095s   +3.457
22. Michael Herck          DPR                    1m31.210s   +3.572
23. Ricardo Teixeira       Trident                1m31.829s   +4.191
24. Luca Filippi           Super Nova             1m34.076s   +6.438
25. Alberto Valerio        Piquet                 1m39.129s  +11.491
26. Kamui Kobayashi        DAMS                   no time