Fp1 - Lotus Renault Gp Report

Vitaly Petrov, R31-05 Free Practice 1: P2, 1:41.227, 20 laps

Nick Heidfeld, R31-04 Free Practice 1: P5, 1:41.580, 23 laps

Vitaly Petrov led the way for Lotus Renault GP on a cloudy first session of free practice for the European Grand Prix on the streets of Valencia.

Using chassis R31-05, Vitaly went second fastest of the day so far as he worked through the standard programme for the first running of the weekend. His time of 1m 41.227s was just over eight-tenths slower than the fastest set today, showing there is still speed to be found.

Nick, in chassis R31-04 set the fifth fastest time. Neither driver encountered any problems today and set-up work found improvements in their cars through the session.

This is the first race weekend where Pirelli's new medium compound tyre will be faced, so a lot of time today is being spent understanding this tyre on the rapidly evolving Valencia street circuit.

Fastest today was Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber with a time of 1m 40.403s.

Tyre evaluation will be the focus of this afternoon's 90 minute practice as the drivers the medium and soft compound Pirellis. As with other street course, the track surface is always 'green' – dusty, dirty and not rubbered in - for the first session because it is so rarely used but it improves markedly over the course of the weekend.

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