Nico Rosberg and Mercedes GP finished Friday morning at the top of the timesheets as first free practice took place on the streets of Valencia. In a warm, dry and chiefly incident-free session, championship-leading McLaren duo Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button completed the top three ahead of Robert Kubica and Felipe Massa.
As expected, it was a bright morning in the Valencia harbourside on Friday although Spain is tragically in mourning at present following the shocking train track accident in Castelldefels, near Barcelona, on Wednesday night. Sadly, this weekend’s race is the second time Valencia has hosted the European Grand Prix just days after a catastrophic accident in the country, as the Madrid air crash took place in 2008.
This year’s event shifts from August to June in order to avoid the summer holiday period of the former month, as organisers hope to encourage greater crowd numbers. Heikki Kovalainen and Lotus were first out of the pits once again as the famed team name celebrates its 500th Grand Prix start this weekend.
However, the Finn and girlfriend Catherine Hyde did not arrive at the venue until 5am this morning, having driven over 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from Geneva, Switzerland after being affected by French air traffic control strikes which led to the cancellation of their flight.
Although several drivers overshot corners on Friday, taking advantage of run-off areas on what is an extremely dusty track at the moment, there was only a single red flag after Bruno Senna’s Hispania jettisoned its left wing mirror, grazing the Brazilian’s helmet before being driven over by Sébastien Buemi’s Toro Ross under braking for Turn 12 and leaving debris on the race track in the process.
At the sharp end, Rosberg achieved a best effort of 1:41.175, a tenth up on Hamilton and Button as Kubica and Massa led the way for Renault and Ferrari respectively.
Incidentally, the Italian team is running a significant car upgrade this weekend which includes Red Bull-style lower exhausts – because of this, Fernando Alonso could be seen sitting at the end of the pit lane for approximately one minute during the session as the Scuderia measured temperatures, now that gases are exiting the car from lower down.
Paul di Resta substituted for Adrian Sutil, as planned, at Force India as fellow test driver Christian Klien stepped into Karun Chandhok’s Hispania cockpit for the first time since Barcelona. However, on its home race weekend, the Murcia-based squad was sidelined before the end of the session due to a driveshaft problem with Senna’s car and gearbox issues with the shared Klien/Chandhok chassis.
The second practice session, also set to last for 90 minutes, begins at 2pm local time (BST +1)
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 01:41.175 | 16 |
| 2. | L. Hamilton | McLaren | 01:41.339 | 19 |
| 3. | J. Button | McLaren | 01:41.383 | 21 |
| 4. | R. Kubica | Renault | 01:41.715 | 20 |
| 5. | F. Massa | Ferrari | 01:42.182 | 21 |
| 6. | S. Vettel | Red Bull | 01:42.216 | 24 |
| 7. | M. Webber | Red Bull | 01:42.275 | 17 |
| 8. | M. Schumacher | Mercedes | 01:42.312 | 18 |
| 9. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 01:42.421 | 22 |
| 10. | R. Barrichello | Williams | 01:42.463 | 21 |
| Full results | ||||
| Nico Rosberg | |||
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| More Nico Rosberg photos | |||
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