08/05/2009
NEWS STORY
Romain Grosjean has begun the new season in style, leading his new team, Barwa Campos, to a 1-2 finish in free practice today in Barcelona, ahead of Vitaly Petrov and Edoardo Mortara.
The French driver set a best lap time of 1:27.638, six tenths faster than his teammate, although Grosjean's session finished on a low when a mechanical gremlin halted his progress five minutes before the end of the session.
The reigning GP2 Asia champion Kamui Kobayashi had an even more torrid time after a similar problem stopped him on track in the opening minutes of the session, handing the Dams engineers extra work ahead of this afternoon's qualifying session.
Most of their competitors kept their cards close their chests with conservative shakedowns, while only Alberto Valerio, Luca Filippi and Luiz Razia fell off track, although they all managed to keep their cars away from the barriers.
Just outside of the top three were Lucas di Grassi, Pastor Maldonado, Roldan Rodriguez, Sergio Perez and Nico Hülkenberg, all of whom will be eager to take the top spot in qualifying.