The third day began with the “variable” of watching Fernando Alonso drive the F10 for the first time.  This morning, the Valencian Community Ricardo Tormo Circuit was at a complete standstill.  A crowd of fans who gathered to see Alonso made long lines of cars in the A-3 freeway, a long distance the exit that leads to the Circuit.

While regularly it takes around 3-4 minutes to access the Circuit, today it almost took 20 minutes.  The expectation aroused by the pilot from Asturias was unbelievable.  If yesterday we spoke of 7000 people who attended the Circuit, today the amount was estimated in more than 20.000 people present.

Today has been a complete day.  It was possible to watch the three Formula One Spanish pilots in the racetrack: Fernando Alonso , Pedro Martinez de la Rosa and Jaime Alguersuari.  In addition, to the current champion, Jeson Button and Michael Schumacher who also rolled out.

The debuting racing cars start at 10 AM on the dot.  The single-seaters start to roll out and we see Fernando Alonso passing by with his new blue helmet (Asturias flag); he is ahead.  Nonetheless, the “first fright“ came with De la Rosa when unexplainably he stopped on his tracks, just when he was marking the best time.  The marshals showed a red flag.  Up to that moment, Fernando had just made one reconnaissance lap.

The march starts again and the pilots start to roll their cars.  Fernando Alonso makes the best time, stopping the chronometer at 1:12.160.  After that, he reduced his time on five consecutive laps.  Just as well it’s the first time he rolls with this car.  How many hours would he have made in the simulator?

Behind the pilot from Asturias, Schumacher marks his best score; he’s fourth in the time table and goes to boxes.  The difference between Alonso and Schumacher is of 1.007.  There was a morbid fascination in the racetrack.

Subsequent to his stop, Schumacher starts to lower his times.  De la Rosa still has the second best time; the BMW C29 is performing well.  It looks solid in the track.

In this moment, the current champion, Jeson Button appears.  He makes his official debut with McLaren.  During his first laps his times were far away from the best (1:18.420), six seconds behind the Spaniard.  The British is still in adaptation period with his new single-seater.

A great surprise comes when the pilot from Asturias improves the time achieved by Felipe Massa, yesterday.  The Brazilian made 1:11.722 and Alonso pulled off 1:11.709, in that same lap.  Schumacher also lowers his time, remaining at 7 tenths of the Spaniard, and Pedro marks a best lap, too  Aren’t this petty quarrels?

At any rate, the show was in the racetrack.  The F10 seems to please the pilot from Asturias, who in his first contact had the satisfaction of making a debut record, but subsequent to his return to the boxes he lowered again his best time.  When a little more of two hours of testing had elapsed, he stopped the chronometer at 1:11.599.

The third Spaniard in the racetrack, Jaime Alguersuari, rolled with consistent times all morning long.  He was ahead of Button, specifically, fourth place in the time table.  However, the most significant aspect is that his times are better than those of his team-mate, Sebastian Buemi.

The last stage of the morning session starts to stabilize.  Alonso starts to advance in 1:12 lows, a great rhythm.  While “Schumi” and De la Rosa follow him at half a second.  Everything seemed to indicate that the session would end in that monotony, but the pilot from Asturias returns with all his might; he wants to see the F10 potential and stopped the chronometer at 1:11.600.  We were all surprised, but a bit later, 3 minutes later, he makes 1:11.470; he lowers his time again.  Wasn’t it supposed to be his contact with the F10?

At 2 o’clock the time came to stop and have lunch.

Morning times:
1º. Fernando Alonso 1:11.470
2º. Pedro de la Rosa 1:12.094
3º. Michael Schumacher 1:12.438
4º. Jaime Alguersuari 1:12.576
5º. Jenson Button 1:13.783
6º. Nico Hulkenberg 1:14.410
7º. Vitaly Petrov 1:14.707

© 2010, www.fantasyracings.com. All rights reserved. The total or partial reproduction of text, photographs or illustrations is not permitted in any form. Copyright by F1 Teams Media Departaments, (GMM) and (CIAM)