This morning’s early morning rain produced damp track conditions for the first practice session of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend but the sun soon came out for Bridgestone’s teams, enabling them to get their dry tyre comparison runs under way. Felipe Massa produced the fastest time of the day in the first of the two one-hour sessions with a 1m15.796s while his Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team-mate Michael Schumacher was second and sixth fastest in the respective sessions.

WilliamsF1’s Friday test driver, Alex Wurz, was also up with the front runners in both practices while conducting the all important tyre tests for his team. Toyota Racing’s Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli finished the day a comfortable tenth and eleventh respectively in the second session. Final tyre specifications do not have to be made until after Saturday’s third practice session and much will depend on how the track develops over the weekend.

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager, said: “The track was extremely green and damp after this morning’s showers and consequently track conditions were quite tough – especially on the softer compound tyres. We did see some graining on the soft tyres and this is something we and the teams will have to take into consideration when making the final tyre selections. But, a lot will depend on how the track surface develops over the weekend. Most of our teams tried both their specifications today and we will combine the data from these and tomorrow’s runs with our previous knowledge of this track before giving the teams our recommendations.”