Pole Robert Kubica leaves the garage during today's test - Photo © Renault/LAT

Robert Kubica put the new Renault R31 at the top of the timesheets as testing at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia came to a close. Could the radical front exhaust exits (we’ll have more on this later on) be paying dividends?

The Pole set a 1:13.144 with just over an hour of the test remaining, to go to top ahead of Adrian Sutil. The German completed 117 laps in the Force India, more than any other driver in the session.

Jenson Button was 3rd in the 2010 McLaren, on a day where the 2009 world champion got to grips with the new Pirelli rubber for the first time. Mark Webber was 4th in the Red Bull, with the RB7 setting a fastest of a 1:13.936.

Felipe Massa was 5th but may have gone faster, were it not for his Ferrari F150 catching fire due to an oil leak after the Brazilian had completed just 12 laps. Timo Glock was 6th in last year’s Virgin, as he set a time in the 1m14s in a single burst late on.

Williams new boy Pastor Maldonado was 7th after a lot of long stints in the interim-liveried FW33. Mexican Sergio Perez ended the day 8th in the Sauber C30. His testing time was reduced after he came to a halt having completing just nine laps, forcing the team to replace his gearbox.

Michael Schumacher was 9th ahead of Sebastien Buemi, with Narain Karthikeyan of HRT being the slowest driver to set a lap time. Jarno Trulli didn’t set a timed lap after Lotus failed to fly a replacement power steering system to Valencia from their UK base in time. He completed installation laps, system checks and aero testing.