Unseasonable weather badly disrupted today's programme at Barcelona, leaving some teams to abandon their original schedule and others to simply watch from the sidelines. There was light rain around the circuit at regular intervals throughout the day and temperatures only just made it into double figures.

Strict security, together with the poor weather, left the grandstands almost empty, despite the fact that local hero Fernando Alonso was on duty. Meanwhile, even the media found itself restricted, with parts of the track, including the roof of the pit complex, declared off-limits.

Topping the timesheets at the end of the day was the Williams duo of Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima, as the Grove outfit debuted another of its special liveries in celebration of the forthcoming milestone season.

This week's livery, the fifth in a series of six, carried the handwritten best wishes of the team's seven World Champion drivers. Alan Jones, Keke Rosberg, Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve, all of whom sent the team personal congratulations as it embarks on its fourth decade of Formula One and at the Italian Grand Prix later this year, will record its 500th Grand Prix start.

Between them, Rosberg and Nakajima completed 169, almost 40 more than the other six drivers who ventured out today.

"The weather really hampered play today," said Williams Test Team Manager, Dickie Stanford. "The intermittent rain, in particular, made the track very greasy for the duration of the session. Nico and Kazuki both concentrated on set-up work and endurance runs so our running wasn't as adversely affected by the conditions as it perhaps was for others."

Red Bull had David Coulthard and Mark Webber on duty, though between them they only completed 50 laps. The Milton Keynes duo made the best of the conditions, carrying out some practice starts, but the team chose not to do too many laps, hoping for better conditions tomorrow.

There was one piece of unscheduled excitement when Coulthard "had a moment" on the uphill section between Turns 7 and 8, which ended up with him kissing the wall, but the minor damage was soon repaired and he was back out on track.

Like its rivals, Renault was forced to revise its programme and was unable to continue with its set-up programme as planned. Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet were on duty, but both were restricted to limited running by the poor conditions.

Both men took the opportunity to complete laps in the rain to gather data for wet running and to assess the balance of the car on a damp track. The team also checked all the systems on the car and now turns its thoughts to the rest of the week.

"It was cold and wet today," said Alonso, "and so there was no point in doing a lot of running. It was an opportunity to try the car in the wet, but it was so slippery that we did not do many laps. We waited in the afternoon for conditions to improve, but they did not so we ended the day slightly early."

"The weather was the main problem today," added Piquet, "limiting what we could do in terms of our programme. I only managed a handful of laps, but there was not much we could learn, so we will have to hope that the weather improves later in the week."