Turn 2 on Formula One's newest track proved a big handful for the best drivers in the world as they put the purpose-built street circuit in Valencia to the test for the first time yesterday, in preparation for tomorrow's European Grand Prix. On a day when all 20 drivers and many of the team principals observed a minute's silence in memory of the dead from this week's Madrid air disaster, the track was the star as the drivers tackled what many believe could become a classic.

The harbourside setting is hardly Monaco; the America's Cup sailing bases are shut and the dominant features are the container port on one side and some residential buildings on the other. The circuit is no Monaco, either. In fact, it could hardly be more different than the slow, twisting and turning relic in Monte Carlo.

This test is long, fast and dangerous, mixing some of the quickest straight-line sections in the calendar with tight chicanes and hairpins. Get it wrong on one of the straights coming out of a fast corner and you will hit the ever-present concrete barriers waiting to turn millions of pounds of racing machinery into a shower of carbon fibre and twisted metal.

Unlike Monaco, there are three or four overtaking opportunities at Valencia, which could produce that rare thing in Formula One - exciting racing in dry conditions. Almost to a man, the drivers were impressed with this newest arena designed to show off their skills. “It's lots of fun to drive and technically demanding,” Sebastian Vettel, whose Toro Rosso led the first session of practice, said. “It might look a bit like Canada [Montreal], but it's completely different. The corners are tricky and it took time to find the right line.”

Turn 2 is among the toughest of the deceleration phases as the drivers haul their cars from a top speed of 180mph to 50mph for the sharp right, then left into Turn 3 behind the Prada and BMW Oracle America's Cup bases. During the second session, as speeds increased, almost all of the drivers locked up their front wheels as they misjudged the braking point and several ran wide into the tarmac run-off area, among them Fernando Alonso, the local hero, in the Renault.

Waiting for them, you could hear the V8 engines howling for the first time in Valencia as the cars sped along the short pit-straight in front of the paddock complex in the old fish market and then swung right through the high-speed Turn 1 in front of the apartment buildings on the Calle JJ Domine, where the locals watched from balconies and rooftops. Then, in a crackle of downshifts and a cloud of brake dust, they reached the turn-in point.

Among the worst offenders here was Lewis Hamilton, the World Championship leader, who locked up the front wheels on his McLaren Mercedes almost every time he went through the sequence, his front right tyre spewing a fine thread of grey smoke as the wheels bounced and skidded towards the apex. Hamilton may have been rough on the entry, but he looked among the fastest on the exit as he roared away just inches from the barriers on the inside of Turn 3.

The drivers have been preparing for Valencia using computer simulations of the circuit and were keen to get as much running as possible to give themselves the best chance of knowing all 25 corners before qualifying today. There were few notable incidents. David Coulthard hit the barriers towards the end of the first session in his Red Bull and session two was incident-free save for a spin by Nico Rosberg in the Williams.

In the afternoon, Alonso was running fastest until pipped by Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari, the Finn having finished the first session in seventh place. Hamilton, who seems to enjoy street circuits (he won at Melbourne, Monaco and Montreal), was third in the morning and fifth in the afternoon.

“I've taken things step by step, trying to improve the car's balance,” he said. “All the time I'm out there, I learn new things about the track. It's just a matter of finding all the pieces and putting the puzzle together.” Felipe Massa beat Hamilton in both sessions, placing his Ferrari second and then fourth.