Fun in the Sun

With rain yesterday and more bad weather expected tomorrow and Saturday, today may have been the only dry running for the teams in Jerez. They made the most of it.

Toro Rosso's Sebastian Buemi topped the timesheets for most of the day - going for an early light run. This was probably so that the team could check the balance in the car before continuing to run heavier loads for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, his longer runs weren't quite as speedy. Despite that, that early lap was still good enough for second and made Buemi my driver of the day.

It was the Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi which ended the day on top; his last minute effort just pipping the Toro Rosso. This was surprising as the Japanese driver spent most of the day languishing at the bottom of the order. This implies that the Sauber is awesome on light fuel but struggles with heavier loads. They could be a force in qualifying that causes a problem for people in the race.

Jenson Button had another awkward start to the day; spending lots of time in the morning still working on his position within the car. However, there were promising signs in the afternoon as he set the 3rd quickest laptime in the McLaren. The only downside was in the closing stages when he stopped out on track bringing the session to an end.

Just behind the McLaren was Nico Hulkenberg in the Williams. Today he seemed to concentrate on medium to short stints, but he was fast. The Williams is really dialled into this track and was the fastest through the speed trap - maybe the Cosworth engine will be a bit of an unexpected gem of the coming season. The only thing stopping Nico from claiming the performance of the day was the rookie mistake which saw him make an excursion to the gravel trap.

Liuzzi's Force India was next up but only due to a late flyer. There is still plenty to work on with the VJM03.

Schumacher and Alonso ran very similar programmes; long runs. The Ferrari seemed more consistent and competitive over the day but the Mercedes set a late lap to overtake the Spaniard.

Kubica was drafted in by Renault today so that the team-leader could make the most of the dry track to guide the development of the R30. From the look of his time progress needs to be made.

Webber ran well at first but then probably ran the heaviest of all; the Red Bull team needed to go through their heaviest set-up runs which were completed by most of the teams in Valencia last week.

Last up was Timo Glock. The new Virgin team again struggled for pace before a front wing failure forced an end to their day.


1. Kamui Kobayashi  Sauber C29  1:19.950   103 laps 
2. Sebastien Buemi  Toro Rosso STR5  1:20.026   121 laps
3. Jenson Button  McLaren MP4-25  1:20.618   83 laps 
4. Nico Hulkenberg  Williams FW32  1:20.629   67 laps 
5. Tonio Liuzzi  Force India VJM03  1:20.754   80 laps
6. Michael Schumacher  Mercedes W01  1:21.083   124 laps
7. Fernando Alonso  Ferrari F10  1:21.424   129 laps 
8. Robert Kubica  Renault R30  1:22.003   103 laps
9. Mark Webber  Red Bull RB6  1:22.043   99 laps 
10. Timo Glock  Virgin VR-01  1:29.964   11 laps