Ferrari's world champion Kimi Raikkonen made a strong start to Formula One's European season by dominating Spanish Grand Prix free practice on Friday.
The Finn, championship leader after the opening three long-haul races, set a best time of one minute 20.649 seconds in the morning and then topped the afternoon timesheets in 1:21.935.
His Brazilian team mate Felipe Massa, who scored his first points of the season when he won the previous race in Bahrain, was second fastest on a sunny morning but only fifth in the later session.
Instead, former champions Renault hinted at a possible improvement in form with Brazilian rookie Nelson Piquet second ahead of Spanish team mate and double world champion Fernando Alonso. Piquet's time was only 0.084 off Raikkonen's, although the Ferraris had been nearly half a second quicker than the best of the rest before lunch at a circuit familiar to all from extensive testing.
The leading trio in the morning had all lapped inside Massa's 2007 pole time of 1:21.421, with McLaren's Lewis Hamilton third fastest in 1:21.192. The Briton was 11th in the afternoon, when the usual frontrunners concentrated more on longer runs with heavier fuel loads.
Raikkonen, a winner at the Circuit de Catalunya in 2005, leads BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld in the standings by three points. Renault, struggling to match the leaders' pace in the opening races, have introduced a significant upgrade including a prominent fin to the engine cover.
However Alonso, who lapped sixth quickest in the opening session with Piquet seventh, warned on Thursday that it was unrealistic to expect him to appear on the podium this weekend. Struggling Super Aguri, with their future in the balance after the collapse of a takeover deal, propped up the timesheets but drivers Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato at least completed some laps.
"It's been a really difficult time, from the end of last year through to the start of this year," former Honda test driver Davidson said of the cash-strapped team's struggle to keep going. "I'm kind of learning to cope with that because it is difficult, really difficult, it's a battle, a fight."
"You can tell yourself you are ready, but without testing here and with limited parts at the start of the year and all that stuff, it really does take a lot out of you," added the Briton.
"There are a lot of drivers up and down the grid, with much more experience than myself, who would have crumbled by this point."