Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel led the way at Jerez today as eight teams went head-to-head for the first time this year, all using their 2009 cars.

Other than a short shower around lunchtime, weather conditions were ideal as one of the final three tests before the Melbourne season opener got underway.

Vettel completed 87 laps of the Spanish track on his way to posting a best time of 1:19.055, 1.275s ahead of his nearest rival, Felipe Massa, who had topped the timesheets all morning.

The Brazilian driver worked on finding the best set-up on the F60 and reliability testing. By the end of the day, he had covered 63 laps, the quickest in a time of 1.20.330.

The work schedule was interrupted by several red flag stoppages, as well as a long break, shortly after midday, following an off-track excursion, although the car was not damaged.

Like Red Bull, Toyota continues to show an impressive pace, with Kamui Kobayashi finishing third quickest. The Japanese youngster went through a programme of aerodynamic evaluations. Timo Glock takes over tomorrow.

"This morning was my first real chance to try out the TF109 in dry conditions," said Kobayashi. "From the first run the car felt easy to drive so we were able to get straight into our programme of aero work. It certainly feels like a step forward from last year. The shower interrupted our afternoon but we still made it through our programme. Overall it went well so this was a good day of testing for us."

"Today we have had very different conditions compared to what we experienced at our last test in Bahrain," added Pascal Vasselon. "Now we are back in a typical European winter. This cooler weather leads to tyre graining, which means we have had to monitor the tyre situation carefully in order to be able to draw conclusions. We have also had to manage the weather conditions but Kamui has completed some useful aerodynamic work and we've had a trouble-free day."

Williams also continues to impress, with Nico Rosberg completing 71 laps on the way to posting the fourth best time of the day.

For BMW, the main focus of today's programme was to test the 2010 specification tyres. The goal being to give the Bridgestone engineers feedback on next year's compounds. Robert Kubica was at the wheel for the first of the team's five days of testing in Jerez.

In the morning the team decided to make a precautionary engine change after sensors indicated there was a problem. It then began to drizzle just as Kubica resumed his programme. As several parts of the track were wet, the team switched from tyre testing to race start simulations.

"Unfortunately I couldn't drive as many laps as planned," said the Pole. "In the afternoon the session was interrupted by five red flags and the changing weather", Robert Kubica said after completing 47 laps. "Because of this I expect a very busy day tomorrow."

It was a good day for Force India, as the brand new VMJ02 was driven in anger for the first time. The Italian completed just 31 laps but finished sixth on the timesheets, ahead of McLaren and Renault. The team admits that given the relatively late debut of the car, today's programme was designed to give as much running as possible, complete systems checks and accumulate the maximum possible amount of data going into the start of the season.

The VJM02 experienced some downtime when an issue with the fuel system developed following initial runs. However, Fisichella was able to complete much of the programme and was encouraged by the improved performance of the 2009 challenger.

"It is a bit frustrating as we could only do 31 laps today," said the Italian, "especially as it is very important to try and get as many as possible as we are already late compared to the other teams. I'm am however quite surprised and happy about what I felt with the behaviour of the car today. It's very promising and I felt much more consistency, even under braking, and more stability in the high speed corners. We need to improve the traction a bit and also the oversteering after a few laps, but this is a problem others have had as well. The lap time is good and I am quite pleased as we did it with one set of new tyres and I know I can do much better than this. We are not that far away from the other people so I am looking forward to tomorrow and another day with more laps where we can try to improve the car a little bit and concentrate on reliability."

"Thanks to McLaren, Mercedes and all the guys back at the factory for all their hard work in getting the car ready for this test," said Technical Director, James Key. "Given the timeframe we've had, to get laps in here is a major achievement. It was certainly good to be running today for the first time at a test following our shakedown last week.