Slick start for Ferrari

Slick start for Ferrari

Ferrari driver impressive on opening day of testing

Last updated: 15th April 2008

Felipe Massa set a phenomenal lap time on slick tyres at Barcelona on Monday, just over two and a half seconds up on his nearest rival.

With his Ferrari fitted with a radical new nose cone that has a hole on top of it and the Bridgestone slick tyres that the teams will use next season, Massa lapped the Spanish circuit in a time of 1:18.339.

His time was over two and a half seconds up on Honda test driver Alex Wurz's best and over three seconds faster than Pedro de la Rosa's McLaren. The Spaniard's MP4-23 also featured a new design as McLaren tested a new rear wing that has been designed for 2009 regulations.

Nick Heidfeld finished in fourth place for BMW, one of only two drivers not to have tested the slick tyres. His best time was a 1:21.679.

Productive

Nelson Piquet Jr was half a second slower than Heidfeld as he tried out a new front wing design for Renault.

"It was another good day of work. The track conditions were good, so there were no problems there and we had a productive morning," said Piquet Jr.

"Unfortunately I lost some time in the afternoon and so I did not do as many laps as I would have liked. We tried some new things but the more interesting work will come later in the week."

David Coulthard and Kazuki Nakajima were sixth and seventh with Timo Glock finishing in eighth place. Glock, however, had his running interrupted during the morning session when he spun off, beaching his Toyota in the gravel.

"Today was a productive day and the team and mechanics did a good job. Everybody was focused on the new bits and pieces that we have brought and trying to find the right way forward," Glock said.

"In the end that's what we did. I made one small mistake in the morning and spun off but it didn't cost us too much running time.

"In the afternoon we collected a lot of data to look at and now we just have to fine-tune that.

"Hopefully overnight we can find the right direction from all the information we have gathered today. The time sheets might not show it yet but I'm happy with our work so far."

Tonio Liuzzi completed the timesheets for Toro Rosso.

Times
01 F. Massa Ferrari 01:18.339 77 laps
02 A. Wurz Honda 01:21.059 75 laps
03 P. de la Rosa McLaren 01:21.566 113 laps
04 N. Heidfeld BMW 01:21.679 105 laps
05 N. Piquet jr. Renault 01:22.125 69 laps
06 D. Coulthard Red Bull 01:22.197 59 laps
07 K. Nakajima Williams 01:22.431 72 laps
08 T. Glock Toyota 01:22.590 92 laps
09 V. Liuzzi Force India F1 01:22.846 91 laps