Buemi Leads Red-Flagged Day 2 of Jerez Test

Virgin Racing doesn't seem to experience too smooth times during their first F1 test in the history of the team, as race driver Timo Glock caused the first red flag of the Jerez de la Frontera meeting this week. In a day that started with rain but saw temperatures rising to as much as 20 degrees at around 10.30 AM, the German driver gave the VR-01 its first proper test of the week.

On Wednesday, Glock only settled for the installation lap with Virgin Racing's 2010 single-seater. Today, he managed to complete 10 laps on the Jerez track before debris coming from his car made the Spanish officials wave the red flag for a few minutes. Glock returned to the pits immediately and is yet to resume action in Jerez.

As for today's running on the Spanish track, the day started off pretty shy for most drivers, as the early hours of the session were again influenced by rainy weather. After the track dried out, lap times started to improve consistently from 1:28/29 to 1:21/22, with Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi setting the fastest time of 1:20.504.

Three hours into the Thursday testing, the Swiss driver is more than a second ahead of his nearest “rival” Jenson Button, while Michael Schumacher took his W01to 3rd place, some 1.8 seconds behind.

Robert Kubica, Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Kamui Kobayashi and Timo Glock complete the Top 10 in that order, according to the lap times recorded at 11.00 AM.

The only significant change of the day, in terms of testing lineups, appeared in the Renault garage, where Kubica replaced Vitaly Petrov for the Thursday test. The official explanation was that Renault wanted to have a senior driver testing the R30 on a dry track. According to the weather forecast, this may be the only day in which drivers can test on dry track, as rain is expected to hit the Jerez de la Frontera region on both Friday and Saturday.