Early advantage for Alonso

Fernando Alonso has come out on top of testing in a field that featured Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton at Jerez.

Former world champion claims morale-boosting triumph

Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton finally tested on the same track for the first time this year and it was the Renault man who came out tops on day four at Jerez. While Renault and McLaren were among those who tested in Jerez in February, Ferrari and BMW decided to head to the Middle East for action at the Sakhir Circuit. Former double World Champion Alonso and Renault laboured at the start of the 2009 pre-season testing programme, but the Spaniard proved on Wednesday that there was nothing wrong with their pace as he set the fastest time of 1.19:945. Ferrari's Raikkonen was three-tenths slower than Alonso while Nick Heidfeld completed the top three.

Fire

The biggest drama of the day came in the morning when McLaren's Hamilton was forced to call an early halt to the first session. The world champion ran just seven laps when he returned to the pits with flames coming out of the back of his MP4-24. He was back on the track in the afternoon, though, and completed another 63 laps someway off the pace of his rivals. Toyota's Jarno Trulli finished the day in fifth and said afterwards weather conditions had played a significant part. "That was a difficult day for us because our programme was disrupted," Trulli said. "The main problem throughout the day was the wind. It was gusting and making it hard to make the comparisons we were looking for. "We did set-up work in the morning and we attempted a race distance in the afternoon until we had a problem with the fuel rig. "We still put in a lot of laps and we put in our best lap later than most teams in the day. So we can be optimistic about that but overall today was hard work." There will be plenty of fine-tuning required by all the teams as preparations intensify for the start of the new F1 season in Melbourne on March 29. Times
01 F. Alonso Renault 1.19:945 129 laps
02 K. Raikkonen Ferrari 1.20:250 105 laps
03 N. Heidfeld BMW 1.20:520 98 laps
04 J. Trulli Toyota 1.20:540 131 laps
05 M. Webber Red Bull 1.20:894 107 laps
06 K. Nakajima Williams 1.20:948 83 laps
07 L. Hamilton McLaren 1.21:302 70 laps
08 A. Sutil Force India 01.21:411 79 laps