BARCELONA, Spain — Nico Rosberg continued his dominating Formula One practice form Friday, the Williams driver setting the fastest lap time across two sessions at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Rosberg covered the Circuit de Catalunya track in one minute 21.588 seconds to lead a Williams 1-2 ahead of Kazuki Nakajima, who was less than two-tenths of a second behind.
Local favourite Fernando Alonso of Renault was third fastest ahead of Brawn GP pair Jenson Button, who was four-tenths of a second off Rosberg's pace, and Rubens Barrichello.
Still, recent upgrades appeared to have kept Brawn GP ahead of the field. The team is likely to be the favourite Sunday after Button won three of the season's first four races.
The Briton leads teammate Rubens Barrichello by 12 points in the drivers' championship, with Sebastian Vettel trailing by 13.
Button said the balance on his car still had to be fine-tuned for qualifying but appeared pleased with his car.
"When you have a good car that you feel comfortable with you can push that car to the limit and you feel so much more comfortable in that environment," Button said. "And you definitely don't feel that much more pressure."
Red Bull pair Mark Webber and Vettel were the only other drivers to get within half a second of Rosberg, who pulled his car off the track in the closing moments due to an apparent mechanical failure.
Rosberg has now set the fastest lap time in eight of the season's 13 sessions, but has picked up only 3.5 points from racing.
"We need to focus our attention on qualifying well tomorrow," Nakajima said.
Saturday's qualifying is expected to be key since the last eight winners in Spain started from pole. Choosing correctly between the soft and hard tires will be important as moderate temperatures left most teams undecided after practice.
Ferrari, which is off to the worst start in its 60-year history, continued to be well off the leader's pace despite an array of aerodynamic upgrades.
Kimi Raikkonen was more than a second behind Rosberg but ahead of teammate Felipe Massa. The last win for Raikkonen, the 2007 world champion who currently has three points, came in this race last year.
But Ferrari was confident it had made a step forward, with Raikkonen even suggesting that the Italian team had "closed the gap to the top cars."
"As from tomorrow, we will see if we have managed to move up the order because today's classification is difficult to interpret and I reckon it doesn't represent the true pecking order," Massa said.
Although Button expected Toyota and Red Bull to be Brawn's biggest challenge, he didn't discounting Ferrari either.
"Ferrari were quite good this morning so they might be playing games, quite a few people do on Fridays like we have in the past," Button said. "So we'll wait and see."
Defending champion Lewis Hamilton posted a fastest lap of 1:22.809 to be 1.2 seconds off the pace.
Improved performances by Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld in the morning session were not repeated in the afternoon, the BMW Sauber pair finishing more than 1.3 seconds behind the Williams cars.
Kubica and Heidfeld finished 18th and 19th at Bahrain, and the German team has introduced a comprehensive aerodynamics package in Spain, where a strong performance is needed to maintain its championship hopes.
"To find a basic setup was today's main task. A first evaluation of the aero data shows we made a step forward," head engineer Willy Rampf said. "Now we are curious about the first real comparison in Saturday's qualifying to see where we really stand in relation to the competitors."
Force India's Adrian Sutil didn't run in the afternoon session due to a problem with his fuel cell.
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