Barcelona testing day four: Ferrari’s Massa extends bid towards the title – Formula 1 news
The final day of Barcelona test session was owned by Ferrari’s Felipe Massa as he clocked the fastest time of 1 minute and 22.625 seconds.
He completed 121 laps but his fastest time came in a two-lap qualifying-style run.
This was also the fastest of the session, previous best being of Nico Rosberg which he posted on Sunday. In second place was Red Bull’s Mark Webber who had a disappointing day as he only managed 69 laps with a best of 1 minute and 23.442 seconds.
“Today we got through quite a lot of work in evaluating some development components on the suspension, brakes and aero package,” explained Red Bull’s head of race engineering Ian Morgan.
Third was Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Buemi who completed 90 laps in his STR6. Following him was Nick Heidfeld who is driving as a replacement for Kubica.
Heidfeld finished fourth fastest with 95 laps.
“In the morning we were not able to do most of our programme because we had an issue with the KERS,” said Heidfeld.
He further said that with the limited time of training available, last thing a team would want is that their car being modified in the pits.
Fifth was McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton who completed 107 laps with a fastest of 1 minute and 24.003. Sixth was William’s Pastor Maldonado who managed 121 laps but most of them were without the KERS system as it was disabled in the morning session.
Seventh was Force India’s Adrian Sutil and eighth was Sauber’s Sergio Perez. Ninth was Virgin’s Jerome d’Ambrosio who posted a fastest of 1 minute and 26.501. Tenth was the seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher.
Mercedes had a faulty first two sessions where none of their drivers managed a P5. This is the first time that the new MGP W02 managed 114 laps without facing any major problems.
Schumacher said, “We’ve had another busy day, focusing on set-up work and improving our understanding of the car. This isn’t the package we will start the season with, so we are not drawing too many firm conclusions.”
Last on the grid was Lotus Jarno Trulli who managed only 18 laps when on turn seven his car went out of control and crashed in the wall. This was not it as the as the car was taken back to the pits where no spare parts were available and the entire day was
lost.
Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne was still encouraged by the testing as he said that there are still some positives to take from this test.
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