New-look F1 car put through its paces in Barcelona

The South Yorkshire-based team have been forced back to the drawing board after discovering the fuel tanks on their F1 cars were not big enough to complete the long gruelling race.

Since the Chinese Grand Prix three weeks ago, Virgin technical director Wirth and his team have been working round the clock to get the cars back to Europe – hindered by the volcanic ash which disrupted flights – and come up with a solution.

The delays meant only Tino Glock was able to take the wheel of the new-look car, which has a longer chassis to hold the bigger fuel tank, as Lucas di Grassi remained with the original drive.

Despite starting out overcast at the Circuit de Catalunya, the sun gradually shone through in the first session.

Both drivers were able to work through their planned programmes to evaluate the latest upgrades, covering 23 and 24 laps respectively. They ended the session 20th and 21st.

A Virgin Racing spokesman said after the frenetic pace of the last two weeks, everybody in the team was pleased to have such a smooth-running session.

And Wirth added: "I was very encouraged by the reliability today, particularly the work done with the fuel systems, which seems to have been very productive.

"On the performance side there is still some work to do although the signs are good.

"This was the first time out with the longer car and perhaps it does react slightly differently; it may take a few more sessions to get to grips with it.

"We also had a couple of issues, for example where we lost a piece of bodywork which affected downforce levels. It will just take a bit of time before we find the sweet-spot of the new chassis."

Red Bull Racing yesterday threatened another front-row domination in practice.

Following the morning session it was McLaren who scored a one-two in Barcelona, with Lewis Hamilton ahead of team-mate Jenson Button by over half a second.

But as the fuel loads came down in the 90-minute afternoon period, so did the times, with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber comfortably clear of their rivals.

A Red Bull car has been on pole in all four races this season, with Vettel leading Webber three to one, while the duo managed to lock out the front row in Australia and China.

Yet despite such overwhelming superiority in qualifying, they have managed just one victory, much to the frustration of all within the team.

Another reproduction of this form in qualifying today and it is hard to look beyond another Red Bull success, especially when the last nine winners of this race have started from pole.

Vettel ended up quickest with a lap of one minute 19.965 seconds, 0.210secs faster than Webber, and 1.1secs better than Hamilton's best in the morning. Michael Schumacher's renaissance continued as for the first time this season he finished quicker than Mercedes GP team-mate Nico Rosberg in both of the Friday sessions.

Virgin's di Grassi was 21st and team-mate Glock 24th, the latter 6.631secs off Vettel, arguably due to the bigger fuel tank after the design fault they were unable to rectify over the first four races.

German Glock said the team were still getting to grips with the longer wheelbase, and would be looking for an improvement in qualifying today.

"Not a perfect start to the weekend as we had a few problems in both free practice sessions," he said.

"In general I think we just have to understand a bit more about the new car with the longer wheelbase, so there are still things we need to resolve (for today). Hopefully we will get it right in time for qualifying."

Team-mate di Grassi was just happy to have come through practice with no car trouble.

He said: "Basically it was a good Friday. We had no mechanical problems and no hydraulic issues with my car.

"It was a good first session and a good second session and we were able to evaluate a lot of the upgrades we have on the car. I'm very happy with the work that has been done and I'm looking forward to carrying on the progress (today)."

Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn believes Michael Schumacher's critics have jumped to conclusions over his poor start to his comeback far too early.

Seven-time champion Schumacher held his hands up to his wretched display in China three weeks ago when he was a lowly 10th.

But Schumacher is now using a chassis first deployed in testing, sporting a radical new engine cover as well as improvements to the wings and undertray.

As first impressions go, the 41-year-old appeared far more at home than at any previous stage this season, recording the third fastest time in each of yesterday's two practice sessions.

Most significantly, for the first time on a Friday, Schumacher was ahead of team-mate Rosberg, by 0.3 seconds in P1 and half a second in P2.

Asked if the flak Schumacher has faced had been undeserved, Brawn said: "If you criticise the lap times he did, that was fair enough.

"But you have to understand the reasons for that before you can criticise any further.

"I can understand why people would criticise because he wasn't going very quickly.

"But there are lots of instances in a season where a car is not producing a lap time, and people don't jump to the conclusion it's the driver.

"So we need to see the season pan out a bit more before people form opinions of Michael's performance."