Valtteri Bottas was in a class of his own at the Barcelona circuit on Friday, topping the timesheet by 0.8s ahead of Lewis Hamilton on a day when Robert Kubica returned to F1 GP action.

The newly resurfaced Circuit de Catalunya caught out several drivers in first practice with Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, Valtteri Bottas and Romain Grosjean just a few who struggled to keep their cars on the track.

Kimi Raikkonen led the early running before he was pipped by the Mercedes drivers.

Valtteri Bottas seemed to have the edge over his team-mate Lewis Hamilton on the soft tyres with a best time of 1:18.695 putting him three-tenths up.