Massa leads Schumacher at Valencia test
Massa spent most of day one in Valencia at the top of the timesheets, ahead of de la Rosa and Schumacher
Also In The News
|
By Tom Powell. |  |
Monday, 01, Feb 2010 05:02
Massa leads Schumacher at Valencia test
By Adam Leveridge
Felipe Massa led the way during day one of pre-season testing at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia.
The Brazilian was among the first out on track in the morning and soon topped the leaderboard with a time in the high 1m13s.
Massa circulated the track no fewer than 102 times while working on his baseline setup and getting to grips with the thinner front Bridgestone tyres, and improve on his time enough to end the day with an impressive lap time of 1m12.574, trouncing Pedro de la Rosa's Sauber and Michael Schumacher's Mercedes by one tenth.
McLaren's test and reserve driver Gary Paffett gave the MP4-25 its first shakedown of the year and was quickly up to speed, breaching the 1m13 barrier on his first run of the day.
However, the Briton could not improve on his time of 1m13.846 and gradually fell down the order to fifth place behind Nico Rosberg and ahead of Rubens Barrichello in the Williams.
Schumacher made his much-anticipated return to the cockpit of an F1 car in the afternoon, following a strong effort by his team-mate Rosberg.
After just seven laps in the car, the 41-year old had beaten Rosberg's time by four tenths of a second and went on to post the third quickest lap overall with a 1m12.832.
Meanwhile, at the tail end of the leaderboard was Sebastien Buemi in the Toro Rosso STR5 - the Frenchman found himself almost six seconds off the leaders' pace, having lost the afternoon to gearbox trouble.