Kimi Raikkonen keeps Ferrari on top in Spain

By Alan Baldwin

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Ferrari's world champion Kimi Raikkonen made a strong start to Formula One's European season by dominating Spanish Grand Prix free practice on Friday.

The Finn, championship leader after the opening three long-haul races, set a best time of one minute 20.649 seconds in the morning and then topped the afternoon timesheets in 1:21.935.

His Brazilian team mate Felipe Massa, who scored his first points of the season when he won the previous race in Bahrain, was second fastest on a sunny morning but only fifth in the later session.

Instead, former champions Renault hinted at a possible improvement in form with Brazilian rookie Nelson Piquet second ahead of Spanish team mate and double world champion Fernando Alonso.

Piquet's time was only 0.084 off Raikkonen's, although the Ferraris had been nearly half a second quicker than the best of the rest before lunch at a circuit familiar to all from extensive testing.

"We did the work we needed to do and had no problems," said Raikkonen. "As usual on Friday, it is hard to judge where we are up against our rivals and I think we can expect a very close fight."

The leading trio in the morning had all lapped inside Massa's 2007 pole time of 1:21.421, with McLaren's Lewis Hamilton third fastest in 1:21.192.

The Briton was 11th in the afternoon, when the usual frontrunners concentrated more on longer runs with heavier fuel loads.