Patronise F1

Jerez Pre-season Test. Day 1 Report. For Raikkonen's gleeful fans, the mitigating factors of the lack of super-quick efforts from the likes of Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari won't stop them from cheering the perfect start to their man's comeback.

His place at the top of the times was cemented within the first two hours of running, as Lotus utilised the fact that all the fiddly systems checks on the E20 had been carried out during their brief shakedown yesterday to hit the ground running while their rivals concentrated on making sure their new cars were working as they should.

The brave and unnecessarily ugly new world of F1 2012 began in near-perfect conditions at the Jerez circuit, with teams getting a full day's running in the sunshine to put their new cars through some early paces.

The Finn in the black-and-gold Lotus hit the front early on in the first hour, having been the first driver to post a lap time in 2012, and sealed his position at the top after two hours with a 1:19.670 from a four lap run, before switching his attention to longer runs throughout the rest of the day.

The only other driver to come close to the Lotus driver's time was Force India's Paul di Resta, the Scotsman moving into second place in the early afternoon, just a tenth off Raikkonen's pace. The VJM05 also completed a number of impressive-looking long stints throughout the day, as the Indian team began their testing programme strongly.

Nico Rosberg was third-fastest in his irrelevent 2011-spec Mercedes, having run the car throughout the morning phase of the day-long session before handing over to team mate Michael Schumacher in the afternoon.

There were no overwhelming signs of true pace from any of the expected frontrunners. Red Bull's day was delayed when parts for their RB8 being flown in were delayed by foggy weather, and Mark Webber had a quiet day at the wheel.

The Australian driver still managed to go fifth fastest in the morning half of the session despite only turning eight laps, and then improved to fourth overall late on as part of a brief four lap venture onto the circuit.

That lap moved him ahead of Australian compatriot Daniel Ricciardo, who enjoyed a good first day in his STR7 machine. The Toro Rosso man finished inside the top five despite losing an hour of track time with a late oil pressure issue on the car, with Schumacher sixth in the year-old Mercedes W02.

Seventh went to Kamui Kobayashi, who showed signs of struggling for pace on longer runs in the new Sauber C31, but still showed some decent single lap pace in the morning session.

Jenson Button took a lowly eighth for McLaren, in a position that belied the MP4-27's promise. Like Webber, the British driver barely turned a proper lap throughout the morning, but late in the afternoon he enjoyed a string of competitive-looking longer runs.

Perhaps more crucially for the team, they managed to come through the first day of testing without any reliability issues, after 2011's shambolic pre-season. The lack of an outright quick time will not concern them just yet.

Ferrari's Felipe Massa was similarly quiet in 9th, over three seconds off Raikkonen's pace, after spending the entire day running his F2012 in full test mode, complete with an ungainly periscope device on the airbox to set off the hideous look of the car's nose. Like their direct rivals, this was not a day for performance runs.

The times were completed by Heikki Kovalainen's Caterham, which showed promise in the team's quest to join the F1 midfield this year before predictably breaking in the afternoon, and Pastor Maldonado's Williams, the Venezuelan only managing some sporadic runs in the newly-launched FW34.

At the bottom of the timesheets was the 2011-spec HRT of Pedro de la Rosa, the Spaniard working on getting used to the team, and ending a spirited day only four seconds off the pace.

There were two brief red flag moments throughout the day, one for Ricciardo's oil pressure issue and the second late one for Kobayashi, who stopped his Sauber when it ran out of fuel.