» European GP: Webber quickest in first practice

Mark Webber has clocked the fastest time at the end of Friday’s first practice session for the European Formula 1 Grand Prix at Valencia.

The Australian out-paced Renault’s Vitaly Petrov and local hero Fernando Alonso by over eight-tenths of a second in the generally incident-free opening ninety-minute session.

Sunny and warm conditions greeted the drivers when the street circuit opened for business at 9AM local time, with ambient temperatures of 25°C (77°F) drawing many visitors to the nearby beach.

Three reserve drivers made an appearance in this session, with Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso), Nico Hülkenberg (Force India) and Karun Chandhok (Team Lotus) filling in for Sébastien Buemi, Paul di Resta and Jarno Trulli, respectively.

For Hülkenberg and Chandhok, however it would be a short-lived outing for each. Chandhok had to call his session a day after just two installation laps when his Lotus developed a gearbox problem, while Hülkenberg had several lock-ups before he slid into a wall and bent his front suspension.

In other news, tyre supplier Pirelli made the last-minute decision to change its tyre compound allocations for the weekend, deciding to bring its super-soft and soft compounds instead of the original super-soft/medium split it had telegraphed it would do beforehand. The reason for the switch – as Pirelli later explained – was to bring about a greater variance in race strategy because both tyre compounds were more closely matched.

Several teams also sported quite noticeable upgrades for this weekend’s race, with McLaren and Ferrari sporting revised front wings, for example. Despite having a problem with his DRS during the session, Lewis Hamilton finished one spot behind Fernando Alonso on the timesheets, while Felipe Massa (sixth) and Jenson Button (seventh) weren’t too far behind.

Nick Heidfeld capped off a good session for the Renault team, clocking 24 laps en route to fifth-quickest in the session.

By contrast, runaway championship leader Sebastian Vettel had a quiet session, finishing just 16th-quickest in his Red Bull.

————————————————————————————————————-

2011 European Grand Prix – Free Practice 1 Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Renault RB7	1:40.403	22
2.	Vitaly Petrov	Renault R31	+ 0.824	20
3.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari F150° Italia	+ 0.836	22
4.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes MP4-26	+ 1.107	23
5.	Nick Heidfeld	Renault R31	+ 1.177	24
6.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari F150° Italia	+ 1.355	23
7.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes MP4-26	+ 1.523	14
8.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes VJM04	+ 1.552	20
9.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP W02	+ 1.640	22
10.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari STR6	+ 1.813	29
11.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP W02	+ 1.867	26
12.	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso Ferrari STR6	+ 2.009	27
13.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams Cosworth FW33	+ 2.301	23
14.	Sergio Pérez	Sauber Ferrari C30	+ 2.335	20
15.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Cosworth FW33	+ 2.438	28
16.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Renault RB7	+ 2.538	21
17.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari C30	+ 2.798	18
18.	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India Mercedes VJM04	+ 3.366	7
19.	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus Renault T128	+ 3.733	17
20.	Jérôme d’Ambrosio	Virgin Racing Cosworth MVR-02	+ 4.623	17
21.	Timo Glock	Virgin Racing Cosworth MVR-02	+ 4.818	19
22.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT F1 Cosworth F111	+ 5.091	24
23.	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT F1 Cosworth F111	+ 6.523	27
24.	Karun Chandhok	Lotus Renault T128	no time	2