2007 SPANISH GP: FREE PRACTICE
Formula One’s European season got underway in Barcelona today with the first free practice sessions for Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix. The Honda Racing F1 Team’s Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello made progress during the day to finish in 13th and 14th places respectively.
JENSON BUTTON
“We spent four days testing here last week so we had a good idea going into this weekend of how the car would perform. Today we did the usual Friday work, setting-up the car for qualifying and race conditions. We have made some small steps with the stability of the car since the last race but the outright pace has not yet improved a lot. However, both Rubens and I covered a lot of laps today so we will look at all the data this evening and see what progress can be made."
RUBENS BARRICHELLO
"A very conventional Friday. We test so often at this circuit, most recently last week, that we know how the car performs and pretty much where we stand versus the competition. I think the car has improved since Bahrain and we have a decent race pace but not such a good pace for qualifying, so we need to look at that this evening and try to improve during tomorrow’s final free practice session."
JACKY EECKELAERT
Engineering Director
“A fairly smooth day in terms of achieving our planned programme and with no specific problems. The car behaved pretty much the same as in the test last week but the track conditions have changed slightly, so it was good to do the comparison work with both tyre options to ensure we have all the right data available for the strategy. I think overall we have made a small step in the right direction in terms of car performance but obviously there is still a long way to go.”
PRACTICE 1
1 Lewis Hamilton ( McLaren-Mercedes) 1:21.880
2 Fernando Alonso (McLaren-Mercedes) 1:22.268
3 Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari) 1:22.291
4 Robert Kubica (BMW) 1:22.446
5 Felipe Massa (Ferrari) 1:22.565
6 Anthony Davidson (Super Aguri-Honda) 1:22.665
7 Jarno Trulli (Toyota) 1:22.740
8 Ralf Schumacher (Toyota) 1:22.843
9 Nico Rosberg (Williams-Toyota) 1:23.048
10 Jenson Button (Honda) 1:23.114
11 Alexander Wurz (Williams-Toyota) 1:23.131
12 Nick Heidfeld (BMW) 1:23.170
13 Takuma Sato (Super Aguri-Honda) 1:23.316
14 Heikki Kovalainen (Renault) 1:23.322
15 Giancarlo Fisichella (Renault) 1:23.397
16 David Coulthard (Red Bull-Renault) 1:23.428
17 Mark Webber (Red Bull-Renault) 1:23.444
18 Rubens Barrichello (Honda) 1:23.479
19 Adrian Sutil (Spyker-Ferrari) 1:23.954
20 Vitantonio Liuzzi (STR-Ferrari) 1:24.104
21 Scott Speed (STR-Ferrari) 1:24.179
22 Christijan Albers (Spyker-Ferrari) 1:24.396
PRACTICE 2
1 Fernando Alonso (McLaren-Mercedes) 1:21.397
2 Giancarlo Fisichella ( Renault) 1:21.684
3 Heikki Kovalainen (Renault) 1:21.966
4 Felipe Massa (Ferrari) 1:22.048
5 Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes) 1:22.188
6 Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari) 1:22.251
7 Nico Rosberg (Williams-Toyota) 1:22.415
8 Nick Heidfeld (BMW) 1:22.543
9 Mark Webber (Red Bull-Renault) 1:22.589
10 Scott Speed (STR-Ferrari) 1:22.617
11 Robert Kubica (BMW) 1:22.710
12 David Coulthard (Red Bull-Renault) 1:22.719
13 Jenson Button (Honda) 1:22.808
14 Rubens Barrichello (Honda) 1:22.926
15 Alexander Wurz (Williams-Toyota) 1:22.950
16 Vitantonio Liuzzi (STR-Ferrari) 1:23.143
17 Ralf Schumacher (Toyota) 1:23.219
18 Jarno Trulli (Toyota) 1:23.307
19 Takuma Sato (Super Aguri-Honda) 1:23.493
20 Anthony Davidson (Super Aguri-Honda) 1:23.497
21 Adrian Sutil (Spyker-Ferrari) 1:23.609
22 Christijan Albers (Spyker-Ferrari) 1:23.736