Hamilton shows flying form in Barcelona testing

LEWIS HAMILTON edged out Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher on the opening day of the final pre-season Formula One test in Barcelona.

The three-day session is the last opportunity for teams to fine tune their cars ahead of the curtain-raising Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 16.

McLaren star Hamilton set a time of 1 minute 22.276 seconds, just 0.043secs ahead of reigning world champion Raikkonen, who pipped the young Briton to the title last season by a point.

Five-times world champion Schumacher, testing Ferrari’s new car for the first time this year in his advisory role to the team, was third quickest with a lap of 1 min 22.428 secs.

Williams’ strong pre-season continued as drivers Kazuki Nakajima and Nico Rosberg were fourth and sixth, sandwiching the second McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen, with all three drivers dipping under 83 seconds at the 4.655km Circuit de Catalunya.

Double world champion Fernando Alonso in his Renault and the BMW Sauber of Nick Heidfeld had the seventh and eighth best times, with Force India’s Adrian Sutil ninth.

It was the on-track debut for the VJM01, named after co-owners in Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya and Dutch entrepreneurs Jan and Michiel Mol.

Toyota and Honda continue to struggle heading into the new season with Timo Glock and Kamui Kobayashi 13th and 16th for the former, while Rubens Barrichello and Alexander Wurz were 17th and 18th for the latter.

David Coulthard brought up the rear of the 19 drivers in his Red Bull, although technical problems resulted in him completing only 25 laps.

Security was stepped up to a new high for Formula One testing as organisers sought to avoid a repeat of the racial abuse suffered by Hamilton earlier this month. The McLaren driver received a wave of racial taunts from a vociferous bunch of Fernando Alonso fans at testing three weeks ago in Barcelona and was also mocked by a group of supporters sporting wigs, blacked-out faces and abusive T-shirts.

One of those fans, Antonio Calderon Martinez, later described his actions as “a piece of fun”, but Spain was widely condemned for the fans’ behaviour and at one stage it appeared to place April’s Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona and the Valencia-based European Grand Prix in doubt.