While the F1 rookie was OK after the crash, his car suffered some intensive damage and had to be carried out to the garage for the remainder of the morning session. Nevertheless, following the lunch break, Virgin Racing announced that they will focus on repairing the car for the remainder of the day and will not continue the action on Thursday afternoon.
Di Grassi's crash in Turn 9 caused the first and only red flag of the day. This is the second time the Brazilian driver has issues controlling his new 2010 single-seater, as he last week lost control of the same VR-01 at Jerez and slightly made acquaintance with the tire barriers. Back then, the Virgin mechanics had no problems repairing the car in less than 30 minutes and get it back to the track.
Virgin Racing was not the only team who had problems with their testing mileage during Day 1 of the Barcelona meeting, as Ferrari also experienced some problems with their 283 chassis of the F10. Debuting their new car to Barcelona, Fernando Alonso only got to do around 11 laps in the morning before his F10 was called back to the garage due to an electronic problem.
The Spaniard returned to action in the last half an hour of the morning session, but was the first to resume action in the afternoon.
After the morning session at Barcelona, it was Red Bull's Mark Webber who emerged on top of the timing reports, closing the session more than one second ahead of second placed Nico Rosberg and 3rd placed Nico Hulkenberg. We'll keep you posted with the lap times recorded at Barcelona throughout the week.
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