McLaren's Jenson Button topped the charts on Friday morning, setting the fastest time for this week's Jerez test.
Button clocks fastest time of the week in Jerez testing
McLaren's Jenson Button topped the charts on Friday morning, setting the fastest time for this week's Jerez test.
It was, however, still eight-tenths of a second slower than the best lap set by Lewis Hamilton, his McLaren team-mate, at the circuit last week.
With blue skies and just the occasional cloud overhead, Friday's running got underway on an ever-drying track with Michael Schumacher setting the pace in the opening hour while Heikki Kovalainen was responsible for what seems to have become the traditional early morning red flag.
The Finn came to halt at Turn 9 with tech boss Mike Gascoyne reporting that the "car stopped with a clutch sensor failure. Replacing sensor and updating front wing while waiting for circuit to dry."
With the action again underway, the battle for the P1 slot saw Schumacher, Button, Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber all take a turn at leading the way...at least until the next stoppage came.
Virgin pace
Virgin's morning began on a positive note with the team delighted when Lucas di Grassi found a bit of pace.
"Good ol' Grassi has pulled a 1m31.6s lap out already!" said the team. "How's that for a Friday feeling!"
Alas, the feeling did not last long. Five minutes later he was in the gravel, narrowly avoiding putting the front end of his VR01 into the barriers and bringing out the session to a temporary halt while the marshals returned his car to the Virgin garage.
The pit lane reopened 20 minutes later, prompting Sauber to send out Kamui Kobayashi on his opening run of the day only for Japanese rookie to come to halt out on track on his very first lap, once again bringing the session to a halt.
After a brief pause it was back to the action with Ferrari eager to get in some serious running: "A festival of red flags so far. Now it's time to run on slick tyres!" the team declared.
First Schumacher took the lead with Alonso second and both drivers in the 1:23s. But they were soon overthrown by Button as the McLaren driver put in a blistering 1:22.693.
Short
However, the reigning World Champ's time was still over three seconds short of last week's best, which was set by his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Returning to the track after his previous eight-lap run, Alonso took control, posting a 1:21.969. The Spaniard was soon joined out on track by di Grassi, whose VR01 escaped any serious damage in his earlier incident.
Kubica improved to second for Renault before being dropped as Button returned to the front with a 1:21.435 - getting ever closer to Hamilton's 2010 best.
Webber was the next to challenge for the P1 slot but the Red Bull racer fell 0.249s short - and stopped. Red flags number four as the Aussie stopped between Turns 8 and 9.
With Webber's RB6 back in the pits the track was green-lighted and the drivers quickly on the pace. Button again improved his P1 time, dropping it to a 1:20.394 to top the morning session.
Webber was second ahead of Alonso and Kubica.
