McLaren and Red Bull shared honors at the Friday practice for the first race of the European season, the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona. In the morning session, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button led the field (full results) while in the second session, it was Sebastien Vettel and Mark Webber taking the honors (full results).

Since this is the first race of the European season, all the teams will bring in a lot of aerodynamic changes for their challengers. This might mean that we will see progress from some of the teams on the pace front, especially by the newcomers. But at the top of the order, things are expected to remain the same more or less, except that one or two teams might just take a step forward.

One of them is expected to be McLaren who have spent this past week talking about how they want to take the next step towards the front row on Saturdays. The highest they have qualified is fourth and at Spain, for the last decade, the pole sitter has won the race. As we get dry races in the future, track position will matter a lot and so this is one step the team would want to take. Also, barring Red Bull, all the front line teams will have their F-duct in place at Barcelona so it remains to be seen if they can indeed make an improvement since their early advantage will be nullified.
The other team is Mercedes who have brought a heavily modified car to this weekend. It includes an angled front suspension that helps the weight distribution of the car and they have newly designed inlets for air intake, which is a very radical design. This also helps with the air effects on the rear wing. Michael Schumacher seemed more comfortable with the car as he finished third in both the sessions, and ahead of his team mate Nico Rosberg. But the real test will come on Saturday and Sunday.

Ferrari were busy with high fueled runs throughout the day as has been their usual practice so far. But they readily tested their F-duct and made comparisons with and without the system on board. Comments from Felipe Massa suggest that they will be finally running the system in the races. But more than that it is the duel between Fernando Alonso and Massa that will be worth keeping an eye out for!

Vettel was easily the quickest on Friday, breaking the 1:19 barrier but he is wary of the McLaren’s pace. He also believes that his car is responding well to the changes made but it matters more during the race. He looks good for pole on Saturday and will want to change what we have seen in the first four races: the pole sitter hasn’t one in any.

Talking Indian interests, Force India have also brought many aero upgrades and will be keen to close the gap on Renault. Paul di Resta continued his Friday practice progress and unless Tonio Liuzzi starts bringing in the points with Adrian Sutil, he will find it hard to hold onto his seat. Karun Chandhok sat out the morning session as HRT gave third driver Christian Klien a drive. When I spoke with Karun a couple of weeks ago, he said they will be bringing updates to Spain and Hispania can expect a step-up as well. Bruno Senna meanwhile hasn’t been happy with Klien coming in and it shows as he was the slowest of the three drivers and Chandhok the quickest.