Felipe Massa and the Scuderia Ferrari set the fastest time on the first day of the maiden test session of the 2010 Formula 1 season held at the circuit of Valencia in Spain.

The Brazilian driver worked mainly on defining a baseline set-up for the new car and on analysing the behaviour of the new Bridgestone tires. Felipe covered a total of 102 laps, the quickest in a time of 1.12.574.

Pedro de la Rosa planted the new BMW-Sauber in second place, which is kind of a big surprise.


“We started with an installation lap in the morning, checking the mechanical systems, followed by a baseline run in order to stabilise temperatures and pressures,” said Sauber’s Technical Director, Willy Rampf.

“We checked the hydraulic system, the fuel system and the gearshift, and everything worked well. In the afternoon we started with some basic set-up work, also to collect various data.”

F1 returnee Michael Schumacher posted an impressive third time overall at the wheel of the new Mercedes W01.

“Today's work has provided a good basis for the next couple of days and it was rewarding to see that the car ran reliably,” said Ross Brawn.

McLaren test driver Gary Paffett drove the new Mercedes-powered McLaren to 5th place, just behind Nico Rosberg in the sole Mercedes.

Robert Kubica was 8th and slowest of all in the Renault.

“A fairly positive first day of running with the R30 with Robert in the car,” said Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer at Renault. “We concentrated on putting mileage on the car and spent time getting Robert comfortable in the car. We also started learning about the behaviour of the R30 – what it likes, and how it responds to the narrower front Bridgestone tires. Then we looked at the brake wear, which will be a key performance factor this year with the cars running heavy fuel at the start of the race. Overall it has been a productive day.”

Results, day one of testing, Valencia, Feb. 1:

Rank Name Team Time Gap Laps
1 Felipe Massa Ferrari 00:01'12''574 101 laps
2 Pedro De la Rosa Sauber 00:01'12''784 gap: 00:00'00''210 74
3 Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP 00:01'12''947 00:00'00''373 40
4 Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 00:01'13''543 00:00'00''969 39
5 Gary Paffet McLaren 00:01'13''846 00:00'01''272 86
6 Rubens Barrichello Williams 00:01'14''449 00:00'01''875 75
7 Sebastian Buemi Toro Rosso 00:01'14''762 00:00'02''188 18
8 Robert Kubica Renault 00:01'15''000 00:00'02''426 69





Photo Credit : WRI2