Spanish Grand Prix: Saturday Practice

Whilst Ferrari and McLaren spent time working on heavy fuel running in Saturday's final practice, Constructor's Championship leaders BMW took their chance to show their hand in Barcelona. Nick Heidfeld took top spot ahead of David Coulthard's Red Bull with Fernando Alonso again impressing for Renault in third place.

The best any of the Ferrari or McLaren drivers could manage was ninth place for Felipe Massa. Lewis Hamilton was eleventh, Raikkonen thirteenth and Kovalainen fifteenth. Elsewhere Nelson Piquet Jnr was the only driver to leave the circuit during the session, running wide after a lock up, but there was no damage to speak of. In general it was a fairly quiet and cagey session throughout, and again there were few clues as to how the midfield battle will shape up. Everyone is just so close!

In terms of times things were very tight all the way down the grid. Excluding the Super Aguris who were again way off the pace, the entire field was separated by just 1.2 seconds per lap. Even perennial strugglers Force India (nee Jordan/Midland/Spyker) appear to have made a decent step forward in pace, leaving poor Super Aguri trailing in their wake.

Practice

01 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:21.269 19 laps
02 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:21.465 16 laps
03 F. Alonso Renault 1:21.599 16 laps
04 R. Kubica BMW 1:21.717 23 laps
05 J. Trulli Toyota 1:21.771 21 laps
06 S. Bourdais Toro Rosso 1:21.942 19 laps
07 N. Piquet jr. Renault 1:21.992 18 laps
08 J. Button Honda 1:22.060 17 laps
09 F. Massa Ferrari 1:22.075 16 laps
10 T. Glock Toyota 1:22.081 23 laps
11 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:22.094 15 laps
12 N. Rosberg Williams 1:22.174 19 laps
13 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:22.176 18 laps
14 K. Nakajima Williams 1:22.189 16 laps
15 H. Kovalainen McLaren 1:22.220 16 laps
16 S. Vettel Toro Rosso 1:22.292 20 laps
17 R. Barrichello Honda 1:22.350 17 laps
18 G. Fisichella Force India F1 1:22.466 22 laps
19 A. Sutil Force India F1 1:22.689 21 laps
20 T. Sato Super Aguri 1:23.726 16 laps
21 A. Davidson Super Aguri 1:23.921 15 laps
22 M. Webber Red Bull no time 2 laps