Formula One news

Raikkonen fastest in first free practice

Kimi Raikkonen has set the fastest time in Friday's opening practice session at Circuit de Catalunya. The Ferrari driver was just ahead of his team mate Felipe Massa. The Ferrari duo was well ahead of Lewis Hamilton, Robert Kubica and Heikki Kovalainen who completed the top five. At his home track Fernando Alonso finished sixth.

The Spanish Grand Prix got underway on Friday morning at 10.00am at Circuit de Catalunya. The track that is often used as Formula 1 test track in the winter period. Last week the Formula 1 teams were testing for four days at the track near Barcelona and thus they were in no hurry to get out on track and start working on the set-up for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix. The drivers did come out for one installation run to make sure all electronics are working properly, but after 25 minutes there was still no driver with a timed lap.

After half an hour into the 90-minute session it was Williams driver Kazuki Nakajima setting a first timed lap. Not much later most Formula 1 drivers came out for a timed lap. Ferrari drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa were soon found on top of the time sheets. In his first lap out though Felipe Massa spun his car in the final chicane, but in his second timed lap he managed to complete the second fastest lap of the day so far. One lap later he showed once again he was racing on the limits as he spun his car once again.

Raikkonen's fastest lap was not improved later in the session and thus Raikkonen finished Friday's first free practice session in first with his team mate only just behind him.

At Super Aguri the team was glad to be back in action after a week full of speculations about the team's future in Formula 1. Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson completed 14 and 10 laps respectively but finished at the bottom of the time sheets.

The second free practice session will get underway at 14.00.

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