Alonso Takes Down Webber's Lap Record on Friday

Those of you who were utterly impressed with Mark Webber's pace in the Red Bull RB6 yesterday would probably have not expected a quick reaction from the other teams on Friday. Well, Fernando Alonso had other plans this morning, as he scored a lap time some 7 tenths of a second faster than Webber's best time yesterday.

Only two hours into the morning session on Friday, the Spaniard impressed the thousands of fans present at the Circuit de Catalunya to cheer for him and took the 283-chassis F10 to a whooping 1:20.738. When we wrote this article, this was more than a second faster than his nearest rival in the time classification, Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi.

Alonso recorded this time during a 5-lap outing on the Spanish track, in which the Scuderia obviously opted for a low-fuel run. Nevertheless, the lap times in Barcelona are expected to drop even more through the course of today, as the track is already rubberizing pretty well after the first day of action, on Thursday.

Additional information about the Friday running is that Virgin Racing will resume action in Barcelona today, following Lucas di Grassi's crashing into the tire barriers yesterday morning. By 10 A.M local time, German driver Timo Glock was still to take the VR-01 for his installation lap.

Bridgestone also revealed the tire compounds it brought to Barcelona for this week's test. According to the Japanese manufacturer, most of the teams opted for the soft compound on Thursday, but the further two options – medium and super-soft – are expected to see more action in the days to come.