Alonso edges Brawn duo

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Fernando Alonso suggested Brawn GP will not have it all their own way come the start of the new Formula One season.
On their return to the track in Barcelona last week, and in their new guise after the demise of Honda Racing, drivers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello blew everyone away.

At the final test in Jerez this week, it appeared there would be no stopping them again as Barrichello was quickest yesterday and again topped the unofficial timesheets virtually all day today.

That was until Alonso produced a stunning, qualifying run lap of one minute 18.343 seconds with just two minutes remaining in the session, edging out the veteran Brazilian by just 0.055secs.

At the end of his final day in the car ahead of the Australian Grand Prix in 13 days' time, Alonso said: "I'm happy with the day as we did more than 100 laps which was our target for my final day of winter testing.

"This has been the first time we have run on a really hot track and the information we have from today will be very useful for the first few races, which are usually very hot.

"We are really well prepared for the new season, and we can go to Australia knowing we have maximised the time we had available."

Button, who stepped into the car in the afternoon as Barrichello had been behind the wheel in the morning, managed just 12 laps as the car suffered a gearbox problem.

The Briton finished just over half a second down on Alonso, with Lewis Hamilton fourth in his McLaren, but 1.170secs adrift of the Spaniard.

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh openly confirmed last week his team were struggling for speed, and desperate to make up lost ground.

With the car sporting a number of new, subtle aerodynamic changes today, Hamilton ran a series of longer runs after lunch to assess the new aero package's effectiveness on tyre degradation.

Although marginally closer to the Brawn in comparison to the times set at the Circuit de Catalunya, it is clear improvements are still required over the course of the next three days.

Williams' Nico Rosberg was last of the five cars on track, with the other six teams having used up their allotted number of pre-season test days.

The German completed a day-high of 123 laps, but still finished just over 1.4secs behind Alonso.