There may not have been a full pit lane of teams, drivers and cars. But the first official day of Formula One testing at the Ricardo Tormo circuit outside Valencia, Spain, today felt like the beginning of the F1 season. In fact, over the last few days there has been more news than ever, with continued car launches — Renault, Williams, Mercedes, Toro Rosso, etc. — and driver announcements — Vitaly Petrov will drive with Robert Kubica at Renault, etc. — and other bits and pieces.
But no piece of news will have been watched more closely than the first track action, and above all, how Michael Schumacher appears back at a real F1 test, finally, and how the various new cars compare, and how Felipe Massa is doing after his much shorter sabbatical from racing.
First news is, Schumacher is back!
Nico Rosberg took the Mercedes car out in the morning for 39 laps, before handing it over to Schumacher, who very promptly put his stamp on the pecking order at the team by setting a faster lap time than Rosberg’s. Will it last? Can we imagine it any other way? But Rosberg is behaving unfazed:
“To have him here is fantastic,” Rosberg told journalists. “It has given me a little bit extra motivation I must say, from my point of view. Just that little touch extra.”
Will he still be so happy at the end of the season? All right, it’s just the first test day.
Schumacher himself said he felt like a little boy again.
“It was a perfect rollout for the new car today,” he said. “I felt totally comfortable and really had a feeling that everything was very natural. It felt just like at the very beginning of my career in 1991 when on the first lap, I thought ‘wow that was really fast’ and then on the second lap, I was just extremely excited. I feel like a young boy again and really enjoyed myself out there.”
Regarding Massa, the news looks great: He scored the fastest time of the day in the new Ferrari. And that’s good news not only for fans of the Brazilian, but also for Ferrari fans. The team dropped development of last year’s car as soon as they saw it required far too much work to catch up to the double rear diffuser cars, and they concentrated on this year’s car. First test, top spot. Good decision.
Still, it is only the first test, and it is only a test. So let’s hope that Robert Kubica’s last place time in the Renault is not indicative of what’s happening at that team. Let’s just hope for Kubica’s sake that it is him getting used to the new team and car.
Finally, here’s a funny thought: Pedro de la Rosa took the BMW Sauber Ferrari (that’s a strange name) to second fastest time of the day. Sauber has just lost its BMW car manufacturer owner the way Honda orphaned Brawn last year. Brawn then won the titles. Could Sauber be on the same track!? Love it.
Test times:
1. Massa Ferrari 1:12.574 102
2. de la Rosa BMW Sauber Ferrari 1:12.784 74
3. M.Schumacher Mercedes GP 1:12.947 40
4. Rosberg Mercedes GP 1:13.543 39
5. Paffett McLaren-Mercedes 1:13.846 86
6. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:14.449 75
7. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:14.762 18
8. Kubica Renault 1:15.000 69
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