Patronise F1

08.00 GMT - Good morning, and welcome to the start of what Patronise F1 is laughably calling our live coverage of the opening pre-season test from Jerez, which will consist of some sporadic updates from yours truly throughout the day, and will hopefully convey a general sense of what is going on at a circuit several hundreds of miles away from where I am right now.

Through the use of various sources of information, including lap-by-lap live timing, Twitter updates from the teams, other more elaborate live text streams and the like, I'll be keeping anyone actually reading this updated with the latest news from the first testing day of the 2012 season. Yes, I'm as excited to see how this goes as I'm sure you are.

Out on the track today will be the following, with most eyes on a certain Finn of some repute at Lotus:
- Mark Webber (Red Bull RB8)
- Jenson Button (McLaren MP4/27)
- Felipe Massa (Ferrari F2012)
- Nico Rosberg (morning) / Michael Schumacher (afternoon) (Mercedes W02)*
- Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus E20)
- Paul di Resta (Force India VJM05)
- Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber C31)
- Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso STR7)
- Pastor Maldonado (Williams FW34)
- Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham CT01)
- Pedro de la Rosa (HRT F111)*
* Running their 2011 car.

We've got a full day of testing ahead of us at the Jerez track, the session scheduled to run from 08.00 GMT to 16.00 GMT. This is the first day of 2012's truncated 12 day pre-season test schedule, and with just 96 hours of track time available to teams to develop their new cars before FP1 in Melbourne, expect plenty of lapping, and very very short lunch breaks.

As clarified in the spiel at the top of this page, this liveblog does not have an autorefresh facility, so you'll need to exercise your F5 finger to get the latest updates. They will probably only be coming in the form of sporadic half-hourly or hourly updates, so don't exercise your finger too much. Or maybe just ignore that, refresh like crazy, and boost the hit count for this blog to a semi-respectable level. Whichever you prefer.

08.30 GMT - Ok then. If you had a bet on which car would be the first onto track in 2012, then here is a link for you. But aside from that, the answer was Heikki Kovalainen in his Lotus Caterham. But that, as with most of the early laps, was nothing more than an installation run with his brand new car.

The first official lap time of the year went in at 08.24am, and went to a certain Mr Kimi Raikkonen, who cut the tape with a 1:20.992 in his new Lotusmobile. Just on the half hour, he sets a 1:20.514 on the eighth and final lap of his first run back in a Formula One car. Welcome back, Kimi.

09.00 GMT - That 1:20.5 from Raikkonen remains the time to beat after the first hour in Jerez. Not that any of Lotus's rivals have really started trying yet. There's no sign of Button's McLaren or Webber's Red Bull setting a time yet, while Massa has been conducting some slow-ish runs in his Ferrari early on.

In case you want something to compare and contrast today's times with, here is Patty's combined times list from last year's four day Jerez test. Kimi's time is already good for 6th fastest on that list.

09.10 GMT - And here's a sight to get any Kimistas out there all hot under the collar. The Lotus team tweet: "Back to the pits once more. It's great to see the #Iceman back in action! #Raikkonen #E20 #F1" (Warning: Link contains photo of platypus nose).

Raikkonen just completed a brief slow-ish run with a best time of a 1:23.402. It's a Raikkonen-by-Raikkonen report!

09.30 AM - Incidentally, as you may already have gathered, Williams became the ninth team to unveil their ugly new car earlier this morning in Jerez. Patty has briefly wittered about it over here. As for laps from that car, Maldonado is yet to set a time, but has completed some install runs. "Pastor is ready to go! He'll be in the cat today and tomorrow," tweet Williams, using what is hopefully an alarming typo.

Nico Rosberg, in the 2011 Mercedes, goes 2nd in the early times with a 1:21.3 at the end of a five lap run, while Kimi is on track and on a long-ish stint. Times in a moment...

09.40 GMT - Kimi Raikkonen's first timed long-ish run comprised of nine laps, and the lap times were as follows: 22.9, 22.4, 22.7, 22.5, 22.2, 22.1, 21.8, 22.9, 22.9. Already, with just 95 minutes of the pre-season in the bank, the Finn has done 25 laps, and unsurprisingly the only driver going really gung-ho early on is the one with literally no F1 experience since people were still legally allowed to wear 'Jenson Button, World Champion' t-shirts.

The Finn still tops the times thanks to his earlier quick lap, while Felipe Massa just set his own personal best - a 1:23.3 - as he continues what can only be described as a tentative first morning in the F2012.

09.45 GMT - Daniel Ricciardo sets his best lap of the morning so far in the new Toro Rosso, popping in a 1:22.578 to go fourth in the embryonic timesheets. Only a brief three lap run from the Aussie, as the Red Bull junior squad follow the lead of most of the rest of the pit lane in keeping things tentative this morning.

At HRT, in their natty F111 test livery, Pedro de la Rosa has cranked his Stannah stairlift up to eleven this morning, pounding around the track to set the first lap of his 37th F1 comeback - a 1:27.2. Faster than Paul di Resta's Force India, though the Scotsman has not done a proper flying lap yet. And may not do one for a while, as the team tweets: "Programme nicely underway as we start to get a feel for the VJM05. Today is all about systems checks before some set-up work later on.". So now you know.

10.00 GMT - The Raikkonen Show continues, as the Finn lowers his early benchmark time to a 1:19.670 on the first lap of a four lap run on his Pirellis. That time is faster than anyone managed over the course of the four days in Jerez in 2010, proving once and for all that as F1 cars develop, they get quicker.

The Finn is now 1.5 seconds faster than anyone else, in what might be an early attention-grabbing series of runs from the Lotus team and their new charger. There's certainly no better way to answer the critics and simultaneously cash in on your famous new signing than by topping an early test day.

Still early days though, and crucially still nothing of substance from Red Bull, McLaren or Ferrari.

10.10 GMT - There's been a frustrating lack of quirky testing accoutrements on the cars so far from what I've seen. Though here's a photo of Massa's Ferrari running a vertical measuring device thingy on his car. What with that, the neon aero paint smeared on the back wing and that nose, the F2012 looks a hell of a state.

Meanwhile, on the track, di Resta is off on his first proper run of the day and sets a time of a 1:22.9 on his first lap to move up to fifth in the times, leaving de la Rosa's HRT marooned at the foot of the timesheets.

10.25 GMT - Di Resta has now bumped himself up into the 1:21s on a quick-quick-slow-quick sort of five lap stint (22.9, 22.0, 34.5, 21.7, 21.5). He's four tenths off Rosberg in second, but nearly two seconds off Raikkonen's session-topper.

We're still waiting for times from Red Bull, McLaren, Williams and Caterham. And on the subject of the latter, the Caterham team were one of the last to confirm their Jerez test line-up. In case you missed it, they'll run Kovalainen today and tomorrow, Jarno Trulli on Friday, and new test driver Giedo van der Garde on Thursday. Read more about that exciting piece of news here.

10.35 GMT - Rosberg has lowered his time now - perhaps in response to di Resta but almost certainly not - to a 1:20.219. So in more positive PR for Lotus, the only car currently within one and a half seconds of Kimi is a 2011 model Mercedes. Rosberg and Schumacher's times today will largely be meaningless and I won't spend too much time dwelling on them, though the team sees this as an important test, both in terms of getting to grips with the new 2012 Pirellis and putting a smattering of 2012-spec bits and bobs through their paces.

11.00 GMT - Jenson Button has kicked off McLaren's winter with a 1:22.366 lap, to put him sixth as things stand, just ahead of Felipe Massa's Ferrari, while Maldonado's Williams and Kovalainen's Caterham have slotted into 8th and 9th respectively with their own first proper timed runs. All of which means we're just waiting for Red Bull to complete our eleven teams on the timesheets. The flirts.

11.15 GMT - Raikkonen, meanwhile, is up to 43 laps for the day now. His last four lap stint was 21.4, 21.4, 21.3, 24.7. And a little earlier, Ricciardo lowered the Toro Rosso benchmark to a 1:22.0 to consolidate fourth place. It's going to be interesting to see how the STR rookies go in testing, I really like the look of that STR7 car, in design if not in looks.

And I have an email! Tom Southern has written to opine: "I have a real soft spot for Williams car launches. No viral videos or media events, they just say 'Right, here's our car, now if you wouldn't mind getting out the way, we're going to test it now.' Also, great to see the Renault logo back on the airbox!" Indeed, though the odds you'd be offered on them emulating the old Williams-Renault glory days this year will be long enough to have you laughed out of your local bookies.

11.20 GMT - Webber is out in the RB8 to conduct his first timed lap of the day. Amusingly, his first lap cuts the tape with a time of 20 minutes 59 seconds, which I'm going to take as being a software glitch rather than a sign that Adrian Newey's built a honker. His first proper time is a 1:23.5, nestling him into 9th place.

In cheerier Antipodean news, Ricciardo continues his quietly impressive first morning, moving up to third for Toro Rosso just over a second off Raikkonen's P1 time. No touching the Finn at the moment, though he has done a billion more laps than most of his rivals.

11.40 GMT - News from McLaren, with Button having done just one run of note so far this morning: "The team were running some routine systems checks - we'll be on track again shortly!" they eagerly tweet. Ricciardo pits at the end of what my rudimentary timing stuff is telling me was a seven lap quickish run. Times: 20.7, 20.6, 21.2, 21.4, 21.5, 21.8, 21.9. Perhaps some soft tyres on the STR7 for that one. Perhaps.

Meanwhile, in mildly upsetting news for Caterham fans, the CT01 is currently slower than a 2011 HRT, after Pedro de la Rosa improved his time to sneak up to tenth place, while Massa just set his own PB, a 1:22.8, and is now back out on what looks like a long heavy run, times in the 1:23s and 1:24s.

11:50 GMT - Rosberg news: He's been dawdling about on a series of 4-5 lap runs throughout the morning, collecting data. The plan at Mercedes is to hand the car over to Schumacher for the afternoon. We're approaching the midway point of the opening day of testing, and so far it will be happy smiles mainly at Lotus, Toro Rosso and Force India. Or at least happy smiles tempered by the knowledge that the times are somewhere between 'meaningless' and 'why are we even bothering' right now.

Those of you wondering why we're not seeing more of Red Bull, blame the weather. They tweet: "We were late getting out today because of the delayed arrival of some components due to heavy fog!". But they're all ready to go now. Good news for Webber, who can't really afford to waste his six allotted test days this pre-season. He's got to find that irresistable force to shift the immovable object in the car next to him somehow.

12.00 GMT - Halfway through! A couple of big moves on the timesheets just recently, as Kovalainen plonks in a 1:23.1 at the start of his latest run to go 8th for Caterham, lifting him up beyond that pesky HRT - not to mention Webber's Red Bull. And Paul di Resta's been off on another slow-slow-quick-quick-slow foxtrot, doing a curious three lap stint (20.3, 36.2, 21.2) that lifts him up to third place.

Meanwhile, one of the main (in fact, one of the only) talking points from launch season has been these new platypus wings. Are we going to get used to them, as we have done with other ugly phases in F1 design? Are we heck.

12.05 GMT - I've had a tweet (actually, I had a tweet 20 minutes ago and only just noticed, sorry) from the excitingly-named nonobadbaddog, who asks "Do we know what tyres Lotus & TR are running?".

Well, yes and no. Lotus tweeted earlier: "Medium tyres again for the #Iceman, we'll have to wait a bit longer to see what he can do on the softer compounds.", so that's them covered. As for Ricciardo and Toro Rosso, I'm afraid I've got no information. But I'd be surprised if they had been running anything softer than a medium this early in proceedings.

BREAKING NEWS - David Coulthard is on Twitter!

12.10 GMT - It's a dizzy old few minutes for Scotland and no mistake, as DC 2.0 goes second fastest in his Force India. A 1:19.772 from di Resta on another up-and-down three lap stint brings him to within poking distance of Raikkonen. Metaphorically speaking.

12.20 GMT - Webber comes back out in the RB8, with presumably whatever parts that got delayed in the fog now tightly bolted to his car, and sets a couple of 1:21 laps right out of the box and then retreats back to the pit lane, having improved his lot to 5th place in the times, still almost two seconds off Raikkonen but ahead of McLaren and Ferrari's early efforts.

12.30 GMT - "What's going on with McLaren?" asks Ted (not the Ted, hopefully) via email. Well, Button has been racking up the laps over the last hour or so, without threatening to lower his benchmark time. He's only on 21 laps for the day, compared to the always-industrious Ferrari squad, who have just broken the half-century of laps for the day with Massa.

Kabui Kobayashi, who I haven't mentioned yet as he has done precisely nothing of note whatsoever, just set a PB on what looks to have been a five lap run. A 1:21.5 keeps the Sauber driver 6th, just a smidge behind Webber's Red Bull.

There are no official stoppages for lunch at these tests any more, which is just not cricket, but Lotus and Ferrari at least have put their car to one side to launch an assault on their buffets. I might use this lull to chance a run for some lunch myself...

12.55 GMT - Most of the teams might be knee deep in ham sandwiches and posh crisps right now, but Sauber and Red Bull are still lapping. Kobayashi is now up to 42 laps after his latest run, which saw him shave another few tenths off his PB and pop ahead of Webber into 5th place (a 1:21.353), while the Red Bull man himself is still playing catch-up after the morning delays, and completed his latest run with a best time of an uninspiring 1:22.4. CRISIS AT RED BULL!

13.10 GMT - Kobayashi's been off on another run, the Japanese driver not needing to stop for something as trifling as lunch like a Swiss-run Stig. His latest set of lap times mirrors his last few runs, in that he sets a mid 1:21s right off the bat, before immediately disappearing into the mid-1:22s.

Lap-wise, aside from Rosberg's 2011 Merc the busiest bees so far have been Di Resta (52 laps), Massa (51 laps) and Raikkonen and Kobayashi (50 laps). In comparison, Red Bull and Webber have just 17 tours on the boards. Meanwhile, Ferrari have tweeted: "The first part of today's job has been completed without any issue on the car.". They illustrated that message with a photo of a duck that had wandered into their garage. Oh no, wait, that's the car.

13.20 GMT - A lull. In lieu of much happening on track, I've had a quick check at Massa's lap times being as he's the predicted frontrunner to have done the most laps so far. They have been, for want of a better turn of phrase, all over the place, his most recent on-track run hovering around the high 1:23s/low 1:24s. But this is very much an acclimatisation day for the Italian team, they've been running with a periscope device on the car and look like they're just blooding themselves in to the F2012 rather than looking to post a representative lap. As you'd expect from a first day of testing, really.

13.30 GMT - Our esteemed session-topper is back out on track for another run in his Lotus, post lunch. Hopefully the whole situation in Jerez should wake up a bit more over the next few minutes. As news of Raikkonen's P1 from the unofficial 'morning session' disseminatea across Twitter, the Kimistas are predictably going nuts, as well they might.

13.35 GMT - Exhausts will be a big talking point throughout the pre-season, as teams work to discover the optimum setting for their newly mandatory top-exiting exhaust systems following the ban on blown diffusers. Expect all the top teams to shuffle their mountings all over the rear bodywork throughout the 12 days of testing.

McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh recently suggested that the exhausts at the MP4-27's launch were fake mock-ups, and the proof is clear in today's running. Here's the launch-spec exhaust exit, and here's the system they've opted for on day one.

13.50 GMT - It looks like it might be a two horse race between di Resta and Kobayashi to win the award for most laps covered on day one. Both have done 66 as things stand, and both are lapping now. Di Resta's on a VERY long run indeed, and it looks like that might be a race simulation. High 1:24s to low 1:25s so far. Kobayashi's just done a string of 1:26s before making a brief trip back to the pits.

Meanwhile, today's early times have had a hilarious impact on the latest championship odds, with Raikkonen now as low as 14/1 for the title with some bookies. That's a daft bet.

13.55 GMT - Button has emerged again, continuing quite a lazy first day at McLaren. He improves his PB to a 1:21.9, but remains 7th. Webber is out as well for Red Bull, those two teams completed the least laps of any of the 2012 machinery this morning.

In other news, I think my timing software has broken, but at the point that it did di Resta appeared to be on a long but consistent run at the wheel of the VJM05. Times, in from what I can guesstimate a single run, were: 25.7, 25.2, 25.0, 25.0, 24.8, 24.8, 24,8, 25.0, 25.0, 25.0, 24.9, 24.9, 24.8, 25.1. So there you go.

14.00 GMT - Two hours to go, and Michael Schumacher has wrestled the reins of the W02 away from Rosberg for the remainder of the day. He sets off on his first run with the only real target being to score some bragging rights by beating his team mate's 1:20.219 from this morning.

14.15 GMT - Schumacher is fannying about a bit at the start of his run, going in and out of the pits at will and he currently sits slowest of all. Though I guess if there's one thing less relevant than the overall timesheets today, it is Schumie's position on them in a year-old car.

Meanwhile, Webber and Button are now racking up some laps on what look like some fairly heavy fuel runs, while Raikkonen, Massa and Kobayashi are all back out on the track. There have been no significant changes in the order for some time.

14.20 GMT - Further to my comments on Raikkonen's ever-shortening championship odds, jonathanhyde has been in touch on Twitter to point out where the real value is: "Narain Karthikeyan is 2500/1 to win the WDC with bet365 and William Hill. Practically a license to print money!" It's a smart bet, and no mistake. Going back to that Oddschecker page, I note that poor Narain currently has longer odds on Betfair than Rubens Barrichello. Ouch.

14.30 GMT - Di Resta is off on another marathon stint, lapping in the mid 1:24s at the moment, slightly faster than his earlier afternoon run. At the same time, Kamui Kobayashi is on another extended run of his own, down in the 1:26s/1:27s. It hasn't looked fast in side-by-side lap time comparisons today, that Sauber. But clearly it will take more than a bodged conclusion from some times set on what are probably wildly different tyres and/or fuel loads to worry Sauber fans just yet. Do Sauber have fans?

A position change! Webber improves his PB to a 1:20.9, as the Red Bull man sneaks ahead of Kobayashi's Sauber into the top five times for the day. He's racking up the laps now, is the Aussie, which is giving eager photographers a chance to get some good shots of the mysterious Neweyduct in all its glory.

14.35 GMT - Webber's place in the top five lasts all of around three minutes, as Schumie comes back out to move ahead of the Red Bull man, on a 1:20.7. In the race to be the first car to break the century of laps for the day, the score is di Resta 82 vs Kobayashi 81. Nobody else has thus far done more than 60-odd, but there'll probably be a lot of long runs over the final hour or so.

14.50 GMT - We've had our first red flag of the winter, caused by the guilty form of Daniel Ricciardo, whose Toro Rosso stopped out on track. We'll get a steady stream of disruptions as the testing schedule goes on, largely from teams running their cars until they're out of fuel to get a precise fix on how far they can push their fuel loads for 2012. The stoppage is a brief one, and we're back underway.

15.00 GMT - We head into the final hour of the day, with the main question now being whether or not anyone will bother trying to ruin Lotus's PR grab for the day and pop out on a low fuel run. It's unlikely, especially from the big guns, who are probably mature enough to stick rigidly to their gameplans. Which has currently involved a lot of relatively slow tip-toeing around.

Webber has now caught up with Button's haul of laps for the day, but just 33 laps on the board for both the RB8 and the MP4-27. Of the 2012 runners, only Caterham and Williams have managed less. Meanwhile, apopros our Lotus session-topper, the team's technical director James Allison predictably downplayed their morning pace earlier on the team's website: "The teams are doing a whole mixture of different programmes at the moment and we obviously don’t have any clear idea of what the others might be working on currently," he explained. Pokerface.

15.10 GMT - Still no changes in the standings, though there's plenty of lapping going on. Kobayashi is into another long run in his Sauber, and has dipped into the high 1:25s and low 1:26s on this one, a second or so faster than his early afternoon work. That indicates either lighter fuel, fresher tyres, more commitment, a better set-up, more ameanable weather conditions, or a combination of the above might be helping the Japanese driver. And if that's not the sort of conclusive statement you've come to expect from Patty, I don't know what is. Either way, he's about to win the race to 100 laps if he keeps this up. 94 and counting...

And here's a quote from Adrian Newey, regarding the Neweyduct, from a variety of F1 news sources in Jerez: "The slot is simply for driver cooling. Traditionally the driver cooling slot is at the front of the nose, but really for styling as much as anything we moved it to where you now see it to break up the aesthetics of the ramp." Do we believe him, boys and girls?

15.15 GMT - Call them what you like, Caterham are suffering some Lotus Racing/Team Lotus-esque early reliability issues with the GT01, as Mike Gascoyne tweets that: "Testing finished for the day unfortunately. No problem with the car but a damaged starter shaft means we cant start it." So the team end a promising day with a best time of 1:23.178 from 28 laps.

15.30 GMT - We still haven't seen much from many of the big guns. Webber's been doing some short, inconclusive runs over the afternoon, with Massa also opting for sporadic appearances on track. However, we do have Button on what looks like a proper long run, his times bobbling around the mid 1:22s to mid 1:23s, which is around a second faster than di Resta's long runs earlier in the afternoon, and 2-3 seconds up on Kobayashi's efforts.

Meanwhile, the day is also over for Toro Rosso after that red flag-causing issue for Ricciardo. They tweet: "Car suffered a drop in oil pressure and the engine protection system shut it down. Nothing serious but not enough time to fix it before 5pm."

15.35 GMT - That stint from Button, incidentally, and in further positive news for McLaren, included his fastest time of the day at the start - a 1:21.5. The stint in full (I think...): 21.5, 22.1, 22.3, 22.6, 22.8, 24.3, 23.1, 23.0, 23.0, 22.8, 23.0, 23.1, 23.4, 23.7, 23.5, 25.8.

But don't get too excited, McLaren fans. Webber just did his own PB, a 1:20.4, and follows it up with a 21.0 and a 21.9 before pitting. And a second red flag for the day has now come out, Kobayashi having parked his Sauber on track after completing lap 103 of the day and winning the race to a century.

15.40 GMT - There will probably not be much time left by the time this red flag has lifted. Maybe the perfect time for someone to take the sandbags out and grab some headlines...

15.45 GMT - We're green again, the Sauber is back in the pits with what by all accounts was one of those aforementioned running out of fuel issues. Time to see if we get any late improvements over the final 15 minutes of the day.

15.50 GMT - Interestingly, our session-topper Mr Raikkonen has only actually done 14 laps so far this afternoon. There's not much time for him to do any more now, but he is on track nevertheless, as are most of the non-broken cars (so no Sauber, Caterham or Toro Rosso for a start).

15.55 GMT - A man known only as Sam has emailed in to say: "Great to see Kimi back where he belongs! How close to a genuine lap time do you think his might have been?" Well, far be it from me to suggest that I know what I'm talking about, but I'm sure Raikkonen's time is pretty close to being representative of their's pace. I'm just not sure most of the laps from the rest of the grid have been.

16.00 GMT - Not looking like we'll get a change at the top. Button's lapping in the 1:22s on another steadyish run, Webber offering a similar pace, Massa's given up and Kimi himself is in the 1:26s. The chequered flag drops, and aside from a de la Rosa personal best, nothing much changes.

Epilogue - And that's your lot from the opening Patty testing liveblog of the season, as Kimi Raikkonen gives Lotus and his success-starved fanbase something to cheer about with the quickest time from the first day here in Jerez, from Paul di Resta's Force India, Nico Rosberg's 2011 Mercedes, Mark Webber's Red Bull and Daniel Ricciardo's Toro Rosso. It's only testing, as we will often say over the next few weeks, and we ddin't see anything like a full hand from the big guns today, but it's a promising start for the returning Finn.

The report on today's action is slowly being assembled here so you'll have to excuse me as I go off and finish writing that. Thanks for reading throughout the day, and I'll be back with day two from 08.00 GMT tomorrow morning.