Ferrari’s Philipe Massa makes a strong delivery on day one of Pirelli’s Formula 1 tyre test in Abu Dhabi
In preparation for next season, 12 Formula 1 teams completed their first day of testing at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi on Friday.
The test kicked off with Ferarri’s Philipe Massa setting the pace ahead of this year’s Grand Prix World Champion Sebastian Vettel by three-tenths. Back on the track for Red Bull, Vettel came in second after Messa, completing 78 laps in the RB6 without any
major problems.
Pirelli take the place of Bridgestone as the Formula 1 tyre outfitter next season, and on Friday they made a good impression on the teams.
“It was a positive start to begin to understand the behaviour of the Pirelli tyres,” Messa, who had a hard time with his tyres over the 2010 season, told the Formula 1 official website.
Vettel was equally optimistic, saying that he thought the tyres preformed better than he had anticipated, and he complimented them on their performance with such a short time frame. “Pirelli are obviously in the middle of their development and what we used
today is not what we will race with, but it was a good start,” Vettel told the site.
The teams are each allotted eight sets of tyres over the two-day test period, where they will check both medium and soft compounds for consistency with Formula 1 requirements.
Messa admitted that there were some difficult runs with the harder tyres, while overall he encountered fewer problems with the softs, which he said were functional even after a larger number of laps had been completed. “We acquired a lot of data which will
be useful for the Italian company to develop the tyres still further for the start of the 2011 season.”
McLauren’s Gary Paffett came in third, reporting similarities to the Bridgestone tyres and a basic balance. Japanese driver Kamui Kobayashi took fourth place for BMW Sauber, noting some tyre wear problems.
The team’s technical director, James Key said that he was satisfied with the results overall and he enjoyed the chance to experiment with different set-up options. “We have to hand it to Pirelli, the tyres are already on a good level and we feel it was a
very positive day.”
Motorsport director Paul Hembery said the teams are taking advantage of the test runs in order to try out new strategies and test varying set-up models in preparation for the February 2011 official tests.
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