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Nick Heidfeld led the way on the opening day of Formula One testing as all 10 teams hit the Montmelo circuit in Spain.

With the newly-named Brawn GP team joining proceedings and Toro Rosso launching its new STR4 at the circuit, the opening day of the test marked the first time that all 10 teams have hit the track together.

And Heidfeld ensuring bragging rights for BMW Sauber with a best time of 1min 20.338secs - half a second clear of anyone else.

The German focused on procedures linked to the race weekend, including pit-stop practices and practice starts while also completing aerodynamic evaluations.

"The weather was perfect for today's programme," he said. "We could try a lot of different set-up solutions and even do some aero work."

Heidfeld was followed by the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen with the Finn working on set-up and aerodynamic evaluations on the F60 during his 81 laps on track. Raikkonen was barely 0.029secs clear of third-placed Jarno Trulli who continued the impressive off-season performance of the Toyota TF109 as he worked through a programme including work on the aerodynamics, brakes and set-up on the car.

"This morning started off with drizzly conditions but the rain quickly tailed off, giving us the chance to have a good day's work," the Italian said. "The afternoon was windier but the track surface was fine. The car felt well balanced from the start and we worked on several new things on the aero side which gave us positive results. We were competitive throughout the day and we collected a lot of data so this was a useful start to the test."

Behind Trulli on the timesheets, Jenson Button provided arguably the biggest talking point of the day on the first test proper for Brawn GP after the brief shakedown of the Mercedes-powered BGP01 at Silverstone last week.

Button topped the times at one point and eventually ended the day in a solid fourth place, little more than eight-tenths of a second away from Heidfeld's benchmark.

Nelson Piquet enjoyed a positive day for Renault as he worked on set-up of the R29 and was fifth quickest ahead of Sebastien Bourdais, who hit the track in Toro Rosso's new STR4; the team having spent most of its time over the winter running the older STR3.

"It's much too early to talk about performance," he said at the end of the day. "However, the car seems to work well and we've already learned a lot today. If we can carry on like this for the next few days, it will be a good starting point for the season."

Bourdais was followed by Mark Webber for Red Bull, while Adrian Sutil was the busiest man on track for Force India, completing nearly 130 laps in the VJM02 and setting the eighth quickest time.

"Today we concentrated on simulating a race weekend, with qualifying runs and then a race simulation this afternoon," technical chief James Key said. "Unfortunately the qualifying sims were a bit of a compromise due to stoppages and we missed the windows with the tyres on both occasions, but overall the car performed well and was very reliable, completing 129 laps in total, obviously a very big improvement on last week and shows we have overcome the initial reliability issues.

"We learnt quite a lot about the tyre performance over the longer runs; we have a little more work to do on bringing the tyres in at the moment as they seem to be consistent on the longer outings but less so on the shorter runs. Otherwise it's been a very productive day with a few aero checks and set-up changes at the end."

Kazuki Nakajima was ninth for Williams which left Heikki Kovalainen in tenth for McLaren, with the Finn lapping in the morning to set a baseline before the MP4-24 was fitted with a new front wing, floor and top body for the afternoon to allow the team to complete comparison work on the car.

Testing times:

1. Nick Heidfeld BMW (Sauber) 1min 20.338secs, 96 laps

2. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 1min 20.908secs, 81 laps

3. Jarno Trulli (Toyota) 1min 20.937secs, 121 laps

4. Jenson Button (Brawn GP-Mercedes) 1min 21.140secs, 82 laps

5. Nelson Piquet (Renault) 1min 21.662secs, 126 laps

6. Sebastien Bourdais (Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 1min 22.158secs, 86 laps

7. Mark Webber (Red Bull-Renault) 1min 22.246secs, 117 laps

8. Adrian Sutil (Force India-Mercedes) 1min 22.452secs, 129 laps

9. Kazuki Nakajima (Williams-Toyota) 1min 22.813secs, 111 laps

10. Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren-Mercedes) 1min 22.948secs, 90 laps

Crash.net / Eurosport