Imola, day 1: Mauricio tops times

The day started with very wet conditions at the Italian circuit, but it dried up in the afternoon to allow the teams to run on slick Avon tyres.

Durango's new signing Rodrigo Sperafico was fastest until the final minutes of the afternoon session when Mauricio managed to improve. Super Nova's championship hopeful Sebastien Bourdais was next up in third, ahead of Red Bull and Durango's other drivers, Patrick Friesacher and Alex Muller.

Bourdais was fastest in the wet morning session and felt upbeat about the team's progress with the new Lola B2/50. "We started with a car which was efficient but hard to drive because we had a lot of oversteer, and we finished the day with a car that had a big improvement to the dynamics," he said.

Super Nova's sister team, Petrobras Junior, had a less successful day, with potential title contenders Ricardo Sperafico and Antonio Pizzonia down in ninth and 11th respectively.

Pizzonia had a spin in the morning and was unhappy with progress. "I still have the same feeling as I did at the last test and we have a lot of work to do," he said. "We didn't seem to improve the car and we only used one set of tyres - I thought there was no reason to use the second set because the car was so unbalanced. Unfortunately after tomorrow we only have one more test before the races start."

But team manager Paul Jackson is confident that his team is moving in the right direction. "It's still early days with the new cars, but we are optimistic that we will be on the pace for the first race."

Testing continues today (Thursday).

Ricardo Mauricio Red Bull Jr 1m37.917s
Rodrigo Sperafico Durango 1m37.965s
Sebastien Bourdais Super Nova 1m37.981s
Patrick Friesacher Red Bull Jr 1m38.129s
Alex Muller Durango 1m38.145s
Ryan Briscoe Nordic 1m38.209s
Enrico Toccacelo Coloni 1m38.348s
Bjorn Wirdheim Arden 1m38.405s
Ricardo Sperafico Petrobras 1m38.469s
Tony Schmidt PSM 1m38.733s
Antonio Pizzonia Petrobras 1m38.735s
Tomas Enge Arden 1m38.771s
Mario Haberfeld Astromega 1m39.092s
Ron Nguyen Astromega 1m39.532s
Zsolt Baumgartner Nordic 1m39.621s
Tiago Monteiro Super Nova 1m40.924s
Nicolas Kiesa PSM 1m43.087s