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As it happened: Final Practice and Qualifying
By Geoff Creighton and Emlyn Hughes
The live commentary has ended. No further updates will be posted.
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OVERVIEW |
QUALIFYING |
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CURRENT WEATHER |
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Clear skies |
High Temp: |
23°C / 73°F |
Track: |
Dry |
ABOUT |
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Emlyn Hughes and Geoff Creighton are autosport.com's live commentary team. The dynamic duo have developed an inimitable style and a reputation for fast, accurate and insightful commentary. With unrivaled access to events unfolding at the circuit, they bring you the very latest, as it happens.
Bugs and Feedback |
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The series arrives in Europe this weekend, after three long-haul events in Australia, Malaysia, and most recently in Bahrain.
Today on autosport.com Live we will bring you coverage from the third and final practice session, and later on the qualifying session for tomorrow's Spanish Grand Prix. The schedule looks like this:
Here are the autosport.com post-session reports, complete with classification lists from Friday's running:
One leading paddock theory is that the test last week enjoyed excellent track rubber conditions after the Le Mans Series endurance race on April 6th, and this has since faded - leaving the circuit more slippery this weekend.
Fernando Alonso – never one to shy away from telling you just how it is – was typically candid about his prospects for the weekend, when speaking to reporters in the paddock on Friday afternoon.
"It's true that last season I arrive here with the possibility to win – this year it's not like that, and that's a little bit sad," Alonso said. "I hope to do a good race anyway to show everybody that I will do good for them."
Alonso was one of the fastest drivers during a busy Friday afternoon practice session, with a late lap that was set using soft tyres. He finished that session in third position, less than a tenth of a second behind pacesetter Kimi Raikkonen.
"Today we always see difficult results to understand, and we need to improve the car for tomorrow, we have some difficulties again on traction and under braking, so lets hope tomorrow we have a better balance."
The Renault R28 has been a difficult car to drive so far this season, but has scored points in Alonso's hands in the opening two rounds of the championship in Australia and Malaysia, where he finished a fine fourth in the former, and secured the final point in the latter. Bahrain was disappointing, though, with Alonso trailing home tenth – a full 22 seconds behind the final point-scorer.
Today both Alonso and teammate Nelson Piquet will aim to qualify the updated Renault in the top ten. Alonso will, however, start Saturday in a rebuilt chassis after the team cited "unforseen circumstances" in a request to the stewards to have a new car put through scrutineering.
Sebastien Bourdais is already being strapped into his Toro Rosso in preparation for leaving the pitlane as soon as the session begins.
The Ferraris, Hondas and Red Bull cars have yet to venture out onto the circuit.
Teammate Mark Webber is already out there and he returns to the pitlane to have the systems on the car checked over.
Only Ferrari and Honda have yet to appear on track.
Nick Heidfeld beats Trulli's laptime with a 1:23.348.
Button is currently fifth fastest with a 1:23.855, and Barrichello is nint on a 1:26.017.
They are all on timed laps and will make a dent on the timing monitor shortly.
David Coulthard slots the Red Bull into 12th position on a 1:23.305, and Mark Webber ... aborts the lap and returns to the pitlane.
Coulthard pitted at the end of the lap, and currently remains in first place.
Barrichello rejoins without any damage and heads for the pits at the end of the lap.
Chris Dyer - Ferrari
The drivers are in the process of debriefing with their teams ahead of this afternoon's qualifying session. Set-ups need to be finalised now ahead of the session, and race strategies need to be sorted out.
Meanwhile on the track the entertainment continues. The Porsche Supercup cars are on the track for their qualifying session.
That is little concern to the Supercup drivers as they battle for pole on a very restricted tyre allocation. With under 20 minutes remaining in the session, Jan Seyffarth holds the provisional pole with a 1:50.190.
Seyffarth will start on pole in Sunday's race from Martin Ragginger, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Danny Watts.
Ferrari, McLaren and BMW Sauber will all hope and expect to push for the front row of the grid, but who will secure pole position today?
Ferrari look to have a great shot at the front row today. Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa have both been fast throughout the weekend so far. BMW will be looking to out-qualify the McLaren Mercedes pair at the very least. Nick Heidfeld topped the times this morning in the final practice session, and he could be the man to take the challenge to Ferrari this afternoon.
McLaren appear to be struggling this weekend, and the pace of Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen could be one of the main talking points by the end of today.
Both Force India cars join the racetrack.
Oversteer held nicely by Sutil in turn three, the Renault corner.
Adrian Sutil comes across the line and sets the benchmark time with a 1:23.224.
Kimi Raikkonen could be about to demote them though as he's also on a timed lap.
Jarno Trulli says that his car is nervous in the wind, and he would like to go a click up on wing level. This will give him just a little more confidence to hit the throttle pedal through the constant radius corners here.
Heikki Kovalainen is only just rolling his McLaren out with five minutes of the session remaining.
Both Super Aguris, both Force India cars, Sebastian Vetel and Rubens Barrichello are all in the dropzone, and must improve their times to have any chance of progressing through to Q2.
Over the line and Vettel moves into 14th - still in danger of being knocked out.
Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet have improved to second and fifth, both using soft tyres.
17. Coulthard
18. Vettel
19. Fisichella
20. Sutil
21. Davidson
22. Sato
David Coulthard
All drivers with the exception of Alonso are on the racetrack.
It will come down to one final run for Nick. 3:30 remaining.
Nick Heidfeld's race engineer tells him to stay in the pitlane, i.e. do not get ready to come into the garage. Heidfeld is sent back out now onto the track.
Sebastien Bourdais made a mistake and has aborted his lap. He is out of the session.
11. Barrichello
12. Nakajima
13. Button
14. Glock
15. Rosberg
16. Bourdais
Alonso crosses the line and goes ...provisional pole!
Felipe Massa ended up third in the second Ferrari, and Robert Kubica will start alongside him in fourth.
McLaren will hope that their race strategy enables both Hamilton and Kovalainen to move up and challenge the top four drivers tomorrow.
Ron Dennis, Mclaren Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton, McLaren Mercedes
The site will also have a full report on the opening round of the GP2 series and discussion of today's events will continue in the forums.
Thank you for joining us on autosport.com Live for today's action. The weather page will update later with a full raceday forecast.
Tomorrow we will be back for raceday at the Circuit de Catalunya. We will be live four hours before the start of the Grand Prix, and will have morning track and weather updates, as well as news stories and predictions for the race.
Please join us tomorrow from 08:00 GMT.