Barrichello leads the way

Rubens Barrichello set the pace in the opening practice session for this weekend’s European Grand Prix in Valencia.

The Brawn GP driver set a best time of one minute 42.460 seconds to head the pack by almost two tenths from McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen.

Lewis Hamilton, bidding for a repeat of his victory in Hungary last month, was third, as McLaren again underlined their return to form following a run of miserable results.

Championship leader Jenson Button finished six tenths of a second down on team-mate Barrichello having set the same number of laps, but generally the signs were good for Brawn, who are bidding to overcome a problem with tyre warming that has plagued them at the last three races.

Temperatures should not be a problem in sunny Valencia, however, with this morning’s session ending with a track temperature approaching 40 degrees Celsius.

Button did complain of both understeer and oversteer during the 90-minute session and will be working hard to fine-tune the car this afternoon, while Barrichello suffered late drama when his car got stuck in gear, although the problem was not thought to be serious.

The title-chasing Red Bull pair of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were fifth and eighth respectively, while Adrian Sutil did his bit to remind everyone the Force India car is now a package to be reckoned with in the midfield as he finished sixth.

It was a low-key session for grand prix returnee Luca Badoer, who finished 20th and last, 3.380secs off the pace of Barrichello and almost 2.5secs down on Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, who finished in 10th.

Badoer, 38, revealed yesterday he expects to be in the second Ferrari for the remainder of the season as the replacement for the convalescing Felipe Massa, but better will be needed if he is to convince his bosses at Maranello of his worth.

It was a marginally better session for Renault new boy Romain Grosjean, whose first competitive outing at the wheel of the R29 ended with a solid 17th place.

Another relative newcomer, Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari, who made his grand prix debut last month in Hungary, enjoyed a morale-boosting session, coming home in 13th, two places behind his equally impressive team-mate, Sebastien Buemi.

Kazuki Nakajima enjoyed a rare victory over Williams team-mate and Friday practice specialist Nico Rosberg, the Japanese driver taking seventh place while Rosberg could manage only 14th.

Elsewhere, Renault’s Fernando Alonso claimed ninth place in front of his adoring home crowd, while BMW Sauber’s latest round of revisions to the F109 failed to deliver anything better than 12th place for Robert Kubica and 15th for Nick Heidfeld.

But the picture looks even more bleak for Toyota, who, with their back-row qualifying performance in Monaco still fresh in the mind, again looked out of sorts on a street circuit, Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock finishing 18th and 19th respectively.