Jerez, Test Day 1: Nick Heidfeld on top 

Written by David on December 04th, 2007 at 7:41 pmLast Update: December 04th, 2007 at 7:41 pm

BMW Sauber F1.07BMW’s driver Nick Heidfeld and Honda’s Jenson Button had the best testing times today at Jerez by using slick tires; slick tires that, as already anticipated, could be reintroduced starting from 2009 season. The Briton was the first to use one of the set of evaluation slick tires provided by Bridgestone and consequently placed himself on top of the times, before Heidfeld bettered his effort later on in his BMW-Sauber.

Despite predictions that slick tires could lower laptimes by around two seconds, Heidfeld’s best effort was only six tenths of a second faster than McLaren’s test driver Pedro de la Rosa on grooved tires.

Kimi Raikkonen marked his return to the Formula One cockpit since winning the world championship in Brazil with the 4th best time for Ferrari, ahead of Nelson Piquet Jr. on Renault and Sebastien Bourdais on Toro Rosso.

Gary Paffett, McLaren 2nd test driver was 7th quickest, with Mark Webber 8th for Red Bull Racing and Marc Gene 9th for Ferrari. Honda test driver Mike Conway completed more mileage for Super Aguri, with teammate James Rossiter the only other driver to run slicks setting the 12th best time.

Timo Glock, having the first run for his new Toyota team was 13th fastest, just ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella on Force India. Fisichella’s day had got off to a disappointing start when he spun early on, but luckily he did not cause any damage to the car.

Nico Hulkenberg completed his first day of Formula One action for Williams as he chases a test driver deal with the team, while Marko Asmer boosted his chances of landing the BMW Sauber test deal by setting a time 1.6 seconds quicker than Javier Villa.

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