First Barca update: Rosberg sits top

Mercedes' Nico Rosberg posted the quickest time in the first hour of the final pre-season testing session in Barcelona.

Much to the relief of just about everyone, clear skies greeted the drivers for the morning session despite earlier predictions of rain on Thursday.

Tonio Liuzzi, Jamie Alguersuari, Fairuz Fauzy, Pedro de la Rosa, Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg were the first six drivers out of the blocks, but the rest didn't hang around too long before joining them on the track.

It was Williams rookie Hulkenberg who was the first to post a time - a sluggish 1:37.821, but Fauzy improved on that with four consecutive "good laps".

His solid run though soon came to an end when he caused the first red flag of the day 23 minutes into a session with his Lotus coming to a halt at Turns 9 and 10 due to a minor hydraulic problem.

The team will be hoping they don't stay off the track too long as they nearly missed a whole day in Jerez last week following a crash by Heikki Kovalainen. McLaren also a problem of their own as Jenson Button's transponder didn't work so there were no early lap times from him.

When the session resumed 10 minutes after the Fauzy incident, the cars were nicely warmed up and the times dropped very quickly. Nico Rosberg went to the top with a 1:25.1, but Alonso wasn't far off the pace.

However, the Mercedes man went even quicker a few laps later and his 1:24.311 was good enough for the best time of the morning. He was followed by de la Rosa and Toro Rosso's Alguersuari.

McLaren fixed the problem with World Champion Button's transponder and he found himself fourth fastest in the morning. The only drivers who didn't post times in the first hour were Red Bull's Mark Webber and Renault's Vitaly Petrov.

First Barca update: Rosberg sits top - Planet-F1 News from planet-f1.com