Hamilton Fastest In Barcelona

Lewis Hamilton was fastest on the first day of the final week of testing before the new season begins.

The day started off damp, but cleared as final designs, setups and parts are tested before the Australian Grand Prix.

The British driver powered his McLaren to a fastest time of 1.22.276

World champion Kimi Raikkonen was just a few hundreths behind in 2nd place, with Michael Schumacher taking his first test in the F2008 finishing 3rd a couple of tenths of Hamilton.

Nakajima proved once again the new Williams was fast, bagging 4th place ahead of Heikki Kovalainen and team mate Nico Rosberg.

Fernando Alonso was left languishing down in 7th in the Renault, which still looks like it has a lot of work to do.

Nick Heidfeld was on testing duty for BMW Sauber, getting 8th position. Christian Klien was also on track for the German team, he only managed 12th place.

The RedBull teams had a varied day. Mark Webber was 9th in the RBR, 10th was Vettel in the Toro Rosso. David Coulthard was left in 19th, i.e. last.

The new Force India VJM01 was on track for the first time. The new car was at the hands of Adrian Sutil and Vitantonio Liuzzi. Sutil was 11th and Liuzzi 13th. Their car certainly looks more competitive than the Spyker was.

The Japanese teams of Toyota and Honda were down at the bottom of the timesheets yet again. The Toyota’s in 15th and 16th positions, the Honda’s 17th and 18th.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1	L. Hamilton	McLaren	1.22.276	78
2	K. Raikkonen	Ferrari	1.22.319	82
3	M. Schumacher	Ferrari	1.22.428	83
4	K. Nakajima	Williams	1.22.724	54
5	H. Kovalainen	McLaren	1.22.852	71
6	N. Rosberg	Williams	1.22.974	108
7	F. Alonso	Renault	1.23.021	79
8	N. Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1.23.075	75
9	M. Webber	Red Bull	1.23.091	62
10	S. Vettel	Scuderia Toro Rosso	1.23.115	71
11	A. Sutil	Force India	1.23.188	95
12	C. Klien	BMW Sauber	1.23.239	43
13	V. Liuzzi	Force India	1.23.270	70
14	N. Piquet Jr.	Renault	1.23.442	42
15	T. Glock	Toyota	1.23.609	86
16	K. Kobayashi	Toyota	1.23.880	29
17	R. Barrichello	Honda	1.24.460	115
18	A. Wurz	Honda	1.24.667	109
19	D. Coulthard	Red Bull	1.24.826	25