Alonso leads in Valencia practice

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso edged out his McLaren and Red Bull rivals to lead the field in Friday practice for the European Grand Prix in Valencia. The Spaniard made an error on his fastest lap but beat Hamilton by 0.227 seconds, with Red Bull’s championship leader Sebastian Vettel third. Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes was fourth ahead of Felipe Massa’s Ferrari and Jenson Button’s McLaren. The times raised hopes qualifying on Saturday will be a close contest. “I’ve just got a feeling we won’t see a Red Bull on pole this weekend,” said BBC 5 Live F1 commentator David Croft. “They have played down the change in the rules on engine mapping [between qualifying and the race] but you get a feeling that the pecking order might change a little bit.” The thrilling Canadian Grand Prix has given fresh hope that, despite Red Bull’s dominance, the championship is by no means settled with just seven races gone. Vettel has a 60-point advantage over Button in the title hunt but Red Bull’s closest rivals McLaren and Ferrari trialled new parts in Valencia in an attempt to gain ground. The Italian team tried out an updated rear suspension and a modified front wing, which was split into two front tiers instead of three. Alonso had conceded on arrival in Valencia that Ferrari were having a “very bad season,” but the Spanish double world champion set the pace on Friday with a fastest lap of one minute 37.968secs. His time was even more impressive as he set it despite locking his tyres, and producing a plume of smoke in the process, going into the final corner. “Alonso got a bit carried away and locked up but despite that he still found time,” said BBC 5 Live analyst Anthony Davidson. McLaren ran with new front-wing end-plates and daubed ‘flo-viz’ paint over a modified rear wing to see if the alteration generated any extra downforce. Hamilton, who had shrugged off suggestions that he needed to make amends for two disappointing races in Valencia, was just 0.227 seconds shy of Alonso’s leading time. Button complained about a lack of rear grip during practice, adding that despite making changes to the set-up of the car it still had “exactly the same high-speed (behaviour) as it had before”. The Englishman, who drove brilliantly to claim his first victory of the season last time out in Canada, was half a second off the pace. Mercedes remained in the mix with Schumacher just 0.347secs off Alonso’s leading time and team-mate Nico Rosberg eighth. Both Renault drivers looked comfortable on track and Nick Heidfeld was just over a second slower than Alonso in ninth just ahead of Vitaly Petrov. However, the F1 paddock is also wondering if two new directives from F1’s governing body, the FIA, will also narrow Red Bull’s advantage in the coming races. The FIA wrote to the teams before the European Grand Prix to explain that they will no longer be able to change their engine maps – how the engine governs the car’s fuel usage – between qualifying and the race. At the next race at Silverstone on 10 July, the use of so-called off-throttle blowing of diffusers, which help to increase downforce by blowing hot gasses over the rear of the car’s floor while the driver is not pressing the accelerate, will be banned. Vettel said that he had used the Silverstone specification in first practice and joked that the rules change would see Red Bull lose five seconds. The world champion, who led the timings for much of the second session and finished just 0.297secs adrift of Alonso’s benchmark, said: “It [the ban on off-throttle blowing of diffusers] will affect everyone but I don’t see us suffering more than other people to be honest. We have nothing to be afraid of. Scot Paul di Resta had just 10 minutes’ running for Force India after reserve Nico Hulkenberg crashed in the morning. The German was the only driver to fall foul of the ‘green’ track, hitting the wall after he lost control of the rear. Hulkenberg described the incident as “unfortunate” and “costly” and Di Resta will probably agree as he lost valuable time on a track he has never raced competitively on. Di Resta managed to record the 14th fastest time. Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari also watched proceedings from the garage as his Toro Rosso was stranded by unresolved mechanical problems.