From SpeedTV.com comes an excellent round up of the last Formula One testing activity of 2006.

McLaren rookie Lewis Hamilton set the pace on this Friday’s testing activities at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit, the sport’s final day of action in 2006. With a best mark of 1:19.493, the Briton edged Renault’s Heikki Kovalainen by 0.1s.

The spotlight at the Spanish track, however, was on two debut drives: reigning double world champion Fernando Alonso made his first-ever McLaren appearance, while IndyCar Series standout Marco Andretti had his maiden F1 outing with the Honda team.

With father Michael in attendance, 19-year-old Marco completed 67 trouble-free laps to set up a fastest time of 1:21.888, two seconds off Honda’s official tester, Christian Klien. Andretti ended up credited with the 14th spot on the timesheets, just 0.5s slower than the car ahead of him, the Williams-Toyota of experienced Austrian Alex Wurz.

 Alonso, meanwhile, drove a sponsor-free McLaren and had to don all-white gear to be allowed an early release from his Renault contract. The Spaniard covered 95 laps to clock the seventh-fastest time of the day, although just 0.257 off Hamilton’s pace.

Triple Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais completed his three-day test with Scuderia Toro Rosso showing yet more progress. After improving by a full second yesterday in comparison to his Wednesday performance, the Frenchman lowered his best time by another 0.3s to 1:21.277, good enough for 12th in the 15-car field. Bourdais also ended up ahead of STR teammate Scott Speed, who completed only 14 laps after complaining of a sore hand, a consequence of his crash at the Sito Pons turn yesterday.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 17th, 2006 at 12:15 am and is filed under ChampCar, Formula One, IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.