Maldonado tops first practice at Valencia

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F1 Grand Prix, GP Europe, Valencia Street Circuites

Williams driver Pastor Maldonado topped the times in the first practice session ahead of the European GP to be held at Valencia. In a session without mishaps or problems, he went quicker than the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.

Jenson Button went fourth quickest, certainly a good start of the race weekend for him after several troubled Grand Prix. McLaren already said earlier this week that they believed they had found a solution to Button's setup woes.

Behind him is Fernando Alonso in a Ferrari that once again features several upgrades, including another change to the exhaust layout.

The session was marked by many wheel lockups in the hard braking zones on what is a low grip surface at the moment. That situation is of course expected to change throughout the weekend.

Results

Pos.No.DriverTeamTimeGapLaps
118Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault1:40.890-22
21Sebastian VettelRed Bull Racing-Renault1:40.9730.08321
32Mark WebberRed Bull Racing-Renault1:40.9840.09419
43Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1:40.9940.10419
55Fernando AlonsoFerrari1:41.0650.17526
611Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes1:41.1050.21515
77Michael SchumacherMercedes1:41.1170.22722
84Lewis HamiltonMcLaren-Mercedes1:41.1580.26818
98Nico RosbergMercedes1:41.1820.29221
109Kimi RäikkönenLotus-Renault1:41.6200.73022
1110Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1:41.7840.89415
1214Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari1:41.8380.94819
1315Sergio PerezSauber-Ferrari1:41.8610.97116
146Felipe MassaFerrari1:42.1091.21920
1512Jules BianchiForce India-Mercedes1:42.1751.28521
1619Valtteri BottasWilliams-Renault1:42.2991.40924
1720Heikki KovalainenCaterham-Renault1:42.4421.55226
1817Jean-Eric VergneStr-Ferrari1:42.7581.86827
1916Daniel RicciardoStr-Ferrari1:42.7771.88728
2021Vitaly PetrovCaterham-Renault1:43.2092.31919
2125Charles PicMarussia-Cosworth1:44.1733.28319
2222Pedro de la RosaHrt-Cosworth1:44.9964.10615
2323Narain KarthikeyanHrt-Cosworth1:45.1204.23023
2424Timo GlockMarussia-Cosworth1:45.3384.4487