Spanish GP: Bottas fifth for Williams F1 in FP1

The opening Friday practice for the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix would again see Valtteri Bottas taking over from Bruno Senna, joining regular driver Pastor Maldonado. For this weekend Pirelli had brought their soft and hard tyres.

After their installation laps both Valtteri and Pastor would wait until near the completion of the first half hour before coming on for their first timed laps. Pastor would come out first but he would pit again without setting a time and after ten minutes he would return. Valtteri had been out collecting data for the team and with forty minutes of the session he was in sixth with a 1m:27.004. He would improve to be fifth with a 1m:25.428.

At this time Kobayashi was fastest with a 1m:24.912, followed by Schumacher, Raikkonen, and Vergne. But Valtteri would move up into second with a 1m:25.120 after which he would pit. Vettel would go fastest with a 1m:24.808 with thirty minutes remaining. Valtteri had dropped to third as the Williams team worked on the rear of his car. Alonso would go fastest with a 1m:24.430.

For Pastor his session would see him down the order and he would ultimately finish in seventeenth. As the session drew to a close Valtteri would drop to fifth with Alonso fastest from Vettel, Kobayashi, and Button. An encouraging start to the weekend with Valtteri in fifth but it must have been a concern to see Pastor so far down the times.

Pos Driver         	  Team		   	 Time       Laps
 1.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m24.430   20
 2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m24.808s  18
 3.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m24.912s  28
 4.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m24.996s  24
 5.  Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault       1m25.120s  24
 6.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m25.187s  15
 7.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1m25.217s  16
 8.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m25.252s  20
 9.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m25.285s  29
10.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m25.339s  24
11.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m25.367s  22
12.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m25.433s  21
13.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m25.539s  23
14.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m25.607s  20
15.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m25.918s  19
16.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m26.226s  24
17.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m26.297s  18
18.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m26.630s  21
19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m27.475s  20
20.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m28.267s  21
21.  Alexander Rossi       Caterham-Renault       1m28.448s  25
22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m28.633s  22
23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m29.107s  19
24.  Dani Clos             HRT-Cosworth           1m31.618s  19