Strong day for Sauber despite crash

Following what a have been several turbulent months for the Sauber team, which saw previous owner BMW announce its Formula 1 exit back in July, the Hinwil outfit has enjoyed registering the second fastest time on all three days of Valencia's opening pre-season test, confirming itself 'best of the rest' behind the flying Ferrari.

With Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso having posted convincingly quick times for the red cars at the Ricardo Tormo circuit, Pedro de la Rosa was back in the Ferrari-engined Sauber C29 on Wednesday following a day of running for team-mate Kamui Kobayashi on Tuesday."After the roll-out on Monday, this was my second day of testing with the new car and I'm happy it was another positive one," the ex McLaren test driver commented. "We learned a lot about the setup of the car with these (narrower front) tires and also about the direction we have to go in with our work for the future."

It was not a trouble-free day for Pedro, though, as the only red flag of Wednesday was caused when the Sauber came together with the Williams of Nico Hülkenberg 25 minutes into the session, leaving de la Rosa to travel back to the pits via alternative means of transport.

"We are quite satisfied with the first test," Sauber Technical Director Willy Rampf added. "We did exactly 1001 kilometres (622 miles, 250 laps) in total. As well as being reliable, it was important to see that the car responded to changes in the way we expected. The drivers' comments on the car basically were in-line with that, which also helps the team to work in the right direction." GPUpdate.net