Soucek tops first practice at Valencia

The Spaniard comes into the season as one of favourites for the title and began his season in good form, lapping the Ricardo Tormo circuit more than three tenths of a second quicker than anyone else.

"I just pushed for one lap initially and the time came quite easily," said Soucek. "On the second lap I went another tenth quicker. I'm feeling very happy. It's still doesn't determine how the race will go, but it's good to be at the front."

Formula Renault graduate Tobias Hegewald finished the half-hour session second fastest, the only driver within half a second of Soucek's benchmark.

Red Bull's trio of drivers all finished the session in the top six, with Robert Wickens third, Mirko Bortolotti fifth and Mikhail Aleshin sixth, surrounding Milos Pavlovic in fourth.

The session was red-flagged once, mid-way through, when Henri Karjalainen spun off. The only other casualty was Pietro Gandolfi, whose car had to be recovered after he went off at Turn 4.

Pos Driver                 Time          Gap
 1. Andy Soucek            1m27.800s
 2. Tobias Hegewald        1m28.174s  +0.374
 3. Robert Wickens         1m28.377s  +0.577
 4. Milos Pavlovic         1m28.593s  +0.793
 5. Mirko Bortolotti       1m28.664s  +0.864
 6. Mikhail Aleshin        1m28.674s  +0.874
 7. Edoardo Piscopo        1m28.802s  +1.002
 8. Henry Surtees          1m28.822s  +1.022
 9. German Sanchez         1m28.844s  +1.044
10. Carlos Iaconelli       1m28.850s  +1.050
11. Kazim Vasiliauskas     1m28.861s  +1.061
12. Natacha Gachnang       1m29.056s  +1.256
13. Alex Brundle           1m29.217s  +1.417
14. Julien Jousse          1m29.230s  +1.430
15. Philipp Eng            1m29.403s  +1.603
16. Sebastian Hohenthal    1m29.696s  +1.896
17. Henri Karjalainen      1m29.718s  +1.918
18. Jens Hoing             1m29.924s  +2.124
19. Jason Moore            1m29.943s  +2.143
20. Jolyon Palmer          1m30.226s  +2.426
21. Tom Gladdis            1m30.398s  +2.598
22. Jack Clarke            1m30.632s  +2.832
23. Nicola de Marco        1m31.928s  +4.128
24. Pietro Gandolfi        1m32.446s  +4.646
25. Armaan Ebrahim         no time