A staggering 36,000 Spanish fans endured 4km tailbacks getting into the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Cheste today to watch their hero Fernando Alonso enjoy his first day of on-track action as a Ferrari driver. The double world champion was driving the F10 for the first time, and didn't fail to disappoint, clocking the week's fastest time, a 1m11.470s, beating team-mate Felipe Massa's best by a quarter of a second. His efforts kept Ferrari's 100% record in tact, by topping the timesheets for the third consecutive day.

Alonso set his quickest time during the middle of the day, but took the lead on the timesheets less than an hour into the day, delighting the crowd in the process. He was joined on-track by F1's two other Spanish drivers, Pedro de la Rosa and Jaime Alguersuari. De la Rosa even finished the day second-quickest after clocking a 1m12.094 early in the day.

But the BMW Sauber driver created a few unwanted headlines when he was caused the only red flag of the day after a minor collision with Williams's Nico Hülkenberg during the morning. Although there was no damage made to Hülkenberg's FW32, de la Rosa lost over an hour of track time as his team repaired some bodywork damage on the C29. Not soon after returning to the track he was able to improve his time.

Elsewhere, Michael Schumacher enjoyed his first full day of testing for Mercedes, completing 82 laps at the wheel of W01, while Jaime Alguersuari competed in his first F1 test ever in the Toro Rosso, completing 97 laps. Renault's Vitaly Petrov also made his F1 test debut in the R30, having been confirmed as the team's race driver only on Monday.

Over at McLaren, Jenson Button made his official debut for the team at the wheel of the MP4-25, lapping seven tenths of a second slower than team-mate Hamilton did yesterday.

With testing in Cheste now concluded, attention turns to Jerez where teams will travel to next for two four-day tests. The first of those gets underway a week from today, on February 10, ending on Saturday February 13, while the second gets underway on Tuesday 16 February. Pre-season testing concludes in Barcelona the following week with another four-day run.

Unofficial times from Cheste (03/02/2010):
1. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) - 1:11.470, 127 laps
2. Pedro de la Rosa (BMW Sauber-Ferrari) - 1:12.094, 81 laps
3. Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) - 1:12.438, 82 laps
4. Jaime Alguersuari (Toro Rosso-Ferrari) - 1:12.576, 97 laps
5. Jenson Button (McLaren-Mercedes) - 1:12.951, 82 laps
6. Vitaly Petrov (Renault) - 1:13.097, 75 laps
7. Nico Hülkenberg (Williams-Cosworth) - 1:13.669, 126 laps