Webber sets the early pace in sunny Spain

Sunny and dry conditions greeted the 11 teams as the final pre-season test ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix got underway this morning at Circuit de Catalunya, home of the Spanish Grand Prix.

Given this is the final test, a number of teams have implemented aerodynamic changes following the Jerez running last week.

Mark Webber set the pace for Red Bull Renault with a best lap of 1:21.487s around the 4.655km track, some way off the 1:18.926s best recorded last March by Rubens Barrichello in the Brawn Mercedes.

For Red Bull, this is actually their second day at the circuit, having completed a number of run on Wednesday for filming purposes, images of which are available here.

Nico Rosberg was second fastest in his Mercedes, 1.1s shy of Webber’s best while Nico Hulkenberg was third for Williams, just a fraction slower than Rosberg.

Pedro de la Rosa took the morning honours of being the fastest Spaniard on home soil in his Sauber Ferrari ahead of Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Jaime Alguersuari.

Ferrari ran their third new F10 chassis for the first time this morning - designated the 283 - with Alonso behind the wheel. A mechanical problem 90 minutes into the session forced Alonso to stop at turn ten. With just 11 laps on the board, the double world champion was eighth best before making a quick run at the end of the session saw him move up the order.

Tonio Liuzzi and the Force India team completed a number of practice pitstops this morning, recording the eighth best time. Renault put aside some time for pit stop practice with rookie Vitaly Petrov, who was ninth ahead of Lucas di Grassi in the Virgin Cosworth.

Di Grassi brought out the third red flag just ahead of the lunch break when he went off at turn nine, damaging the VR-01, something the team really don’t need after such limited test mileage last week at Jerez. Early unsubstantiated reports claim the shunt was due to a rear wing failure.

Contrary to expectations, Lotus opted to give test and reserve driver Fairuz Fauzy some additional test mileage in the new T127.

After an early hydraulics problem which brought out the red flags, the Malaysian driver was soon back on track completing a number of runs gathering engine data. He is currently slowest of the 11 runners, just over eight seconds off the ultimate pace.

A full report to follow at the close of play.