The first of two practice sessions at Circuit de Catalunya has seen some interesting times set as most of the cars ran with updates for the first time. As mentioned earlier in the week, these sessions will be important to the teams as they all try to gain the most from their aerodynamic tweaks, made even harder by the ban on in-season testing. Needless to say, most drivers set a few more laps than normal and the order is a little mixed.

Unsurprisingly, Jenson Button leads the pack with a benchmark time 0.355s faster than second-placed driver Jarno Trulli. Ross Brawn stated this week that although few updates have been made to the championship leading BGP 001 since the first race in Australia, the Spanish round would see the chassis receive some upgrades.

The next surprise were the BMWs, with Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld setting the third and fourth quickest times. As with testing, it is unknown what fuel loads the drivers are carrying and the laps set may just have been run on fumes. But to see both drivers in the mix (albeit 0.4s apart) is certainly encouraging.

The Williams showed off their now customary practice pace, although credit where it is due, it wasn’t just Nico Rosberg who was beaming his way around the paddock as team mate Kazuki Nakajima went ever so slightly faster. In fact, the young Japanese pilot was only 0.001s shy of Nick Heidfeld ahead of him.

Surprise number three came from Nelson Piquet Jr, who posted the seventh fastest lap of the morning, a second shy of the pace setting Brawn and 0.4s the better of team mate Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard ended up in P17, although the difference between the pair can be explained by the team allowing Piquet more low-fuel mileage in practice in order to help the Brazilian with his qualifying form.

Timo Glock, Felipe Massa and Rubens Barrichello rounded out the top ten.

The Red Bulls had a low-key session with Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel breaking for lunch in P12 and P13. They did remain ahead of the McLaren duo though, with Lewis Hamilton down in P14 and Heikki Kovalainen in P19. All in all, there were few incidents in the first session, with only Vettel, Webber and Glock running wide through corners and Rosberg had a brief spin in his Williams.

Spain 2009 Friday Free Practice One		Lap Time Fastest Time Set	Laps Set Number Laps Set
1.	Jenson Button Brawn	1m21.799s	21 Laps
2.	Jarno Trulli Toyota	1m22.154s	30 Laps
3.	Robert Kubica BMW	1m22.221s	24 Laps
4.	Nick Heidfeld BMW	1m22.658s	14 Laps
5.	Kazuki Nakajima Williams	1m22.659s	24 Laps
6.	Nico Rosberg Williams	1m22.667s	26 Laps
7.	Nelson Piquet Jr. Renault	1m22.753s	24 Laps
8.	Timo Glock Toyota	1m22.828s	29 Laps
9.	Felipe Massa Ferrari	1m22.855s	15 Laps
10.	Rubens Barrichello Brawn	1m22.859s	24 Laps
11.	Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari	1m22.873s	20 Laps
12.	Mark Webber Red Bull Racing	1m22.934s	25 Laps
13.	Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing	1m22.959s	24 Laps
14.	Lewis Hamilton McLaren	1m23.077s	21 Laps
15.	Sebastien Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso	1m23.088s	30 Laps
16.	Giancarlo Fisichella Force India	1m23.089s	25 Laps
17.	Fernando Alonso Renault	1m23.157s	18 Laps
18.	Sebastien Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso	1m23.185s	31 Laps
19.	Heikki Kovalainen McLaren	1m23.522s	17 Laps
20.	Adrian Sutil Force India	1m23.536s	19 Laps