Massa fastest as testing begins in Spain
Felipe Massa announced his return to Formula 1 by setting the fastest time on the first day of 2010 testing.
The Ferrari driver ended today's Valencia session 0.2s ahead of second-placed Pedro de la Rosa's Sauber, while Michael Schumacher immediately showed his pace by taking third place for Mercedes.
Although Massa had been given several outings in 2007 and 2008 Ferraris to prove his fitness following his horrific accident in Hungary last year, today's first test for the new F10 was his first fully-fledged F1 appearance since the crash.
He was fastest for the majority of the day, although de la Rosa briefly edged ahead for the newly-independent Sauber team in the middle of the afternoon.
Massa returned to the top in the final 15 minutes, though, lapping in 1m12.574s to beat the Spaniard by 0.210s.
The main talking point of the day is likely to be Schumacher's performance.
His team-mate Nico Rosberg was given the honour of taking Mercedes' new car out first, with the seven times champion taking over for the last hour and a half.
Within 18 laps Schumacher had beaten Rosberg's time, and he ended the day one place and 0.6s ahead of the younger German.
There was a brief shock when Schumacher appeared at the top of the timing screens with a lap a full 4s faster than the competition - but this was swiftly disallowed as he had missed part of the course.
McLaren test driver Gary Paffett was fifth, followed by Rubens Barrichello - who caused the day's sole red flag when his Williams stopped on track in the closing stages, causing the session to be extended by 10 minutes.
Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi and Renault's Robert Kubica brought up the tail of the field.
Monday's unofficial test times from Valencia
1 MASSA Ferrari 1m12.574s (102)
2 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m12.784s (74)
3 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m12.944s (40)
4 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m13.543s (39)
5 PAFFETT McLaren 1m13.846s (86)
6 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m14.449s (75)
7 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m14.762s (18)
8 KUBICA Renault 1m15.000s (68)
Source: itv.com/f1
Image source: itv.com/f1
Felipe Massa announced his return to Formula 1 by setting the fastest time on the first day of 2010 testing.
The Ferrari driver ended today's Valencia session 0.2s ahead of second-placed Pedro de la Rosa's Sauber, while Michael Schumacher immediately showed his pace by taking third place for Mercedes.
Although Massa had been given several outings in 2007 and 2008 Ferraris to prove his fitness following his horrific accident in Hungary last year, today's first test for the new F10 was his first fully-fledged F1 appearance since the crash.
He was fastest for the majority of the day, although de la Rosa briefly edged ahead for the newly-independent Sauber team in the middle of the afternoon.
Massa returned to the top in the final 15 minutes, though, lapping in 1m12.574s to beat the Spaniard by 0.210s.
The main talking point of the day is likely to be Schumacher's performance.
His team-mate Nico Rosberg was given the honour of taking Mercedes' new car out first, with the seven times champion taking over for the last hour and a half.
Within 18 laps Schumacher had beaten Rosberg's time, and he ended the day one place and 0.6s ahead of the younger German.
There was a brief shock when Schumacher appeared at the top of the timing screens with a lap a full 4s faster than the competition - but this was swiftly disallowed as he had missed part of the course.
McLaren test driver Gary Paffett was fifth, followed by Rubens Barrichello - who caused the day's sole red flag when his Williams stopped on track in the closing stages, causing the session to be extended by 10 minutes.
Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi and Renault's Robert Kubica brought up the tail of the field.
Monday's unofficial test times from Valencia
1 MASSA Ferrari 1m12.574s (102)
2 DE LA ROSA Sauber 1m12.784s (74)
3 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m12.944s (40)
4 ROSBERG Mercedes 1m13.543s (39)
5 PAFFETT McLaren 1m13.846s (86)
6 BARRICHELLO Williams 1m14.449s (75)
7 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m14.762s (18)
8 KUBICA Renault 1m15.000s (68)
Source: itv.com/f1
Image source: itv.com/f1
