Massa’s Ferrari again fastest in F1 testing

Felipe Massa again fastest

Another good day weather-wise in Valencia provided ideal winter testing conditions and enabled the teams to successfully work through today's program Felipe Massa was again fastest on the second day of pre-season Formula 1 testing at Valencia in Spain on Tuesday. The Brazilian, who had been quickest on the opening day of action on Monday, spent most of the day focusing on long runs.

His best effort of 1m11.722s seconds was set in the first hour of running.

Kamui Kobayashi, probably running light to get some headlines and land a sponsor, was 2nd with a time of 1m12.056s.

"It was definitely a good day," said Kobayashi. "We had no problems with the car and covered a lot of mileage. The car felt good. I enjoyed driving a lot and also working with the team.

"It was a difficult winter for everyone but they seem to have done a good job; I want to thank them for that. Now it is important to keep working hard for the remaining test opportunities."

Nico Rosberg was back at the wheel of the MGP W01 car today for his first full day of testing for the Mercedes GP Petronas team.

After completing the initial set-up work with the MGP W01 yesterday morning, Nico had a productive day focusing on long runs which saw him cover a race distance mileage over the course of the day. Although still not entirely comfortable with his position in the car, Nico completed 119 laps today, setting a fastest lap time of 01:12.899.

Michael Schumacher will take over from Nico tomorrow for the third and final day of this week's test.

Nico Rosberg: "I'm very pleased with our first full day of testing and we were really able to get into the program and achieve some good work today. We successfully completed a race distance on the car's second day of running and I'm quite happy with how the car felt on the longer runs with heavy fuel. It felt like the same car, just a little bit slower, but the balance was good. We've still got some work to do on my position in the car as I dropped down by 1.5cm during the day which explains why the visibility got a little difficult towards the end but that's something we can fix before the next test. Overall it's been a positive start to our pre-season testing and I'm enjoying working with the team and feeling very comfortable here."

RESULTS (All timings are unofficial)

Pos Driver Car Time Laps
1. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:11.722 124
2. Kamui Kobayashi BMW Sauber 1:12.056 96
3. Lewis Hamilton Vodafone McLaren Mercedes 1:12.256 108
4. Robert Kubica Renault 1:12.426 119
5. Nico Rosberg MERCEDES GP PETRONAS 1:12.899 119
6. Rubens Barrichello Williams 1:13.377 102
7. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso 1:13.823 107