Felipe Massa was the man to beat on the first day of testing in Barcelona. On slick tyres with a radical new nose cone, the Brazilian finished the day over 2.5 seconds ahead of his nearest rival. Honda test driver Alex Wurz, also running on slick tyres, finished with the second best time of the day, a full 2.7 seconds behind Massa s F2008.
Most of the teams in action were testing out new updates to their cars, many of which will debut in Spain in a fortnight when the European leg of the season begins.
For this week s test session, each team were given nine sets of slick tyres to work with as Bridgestone prepares for a return to slick tyre racing next season. It has already been agreed that any testing done on slicks will not be counted towards testing mileage.
The test session was marred by four red flags Glock, Piquet and Heidfeld all had a spin causing red flags to be waved. Late in the day, Nakajima went off-track causing the final red flag of the session.
Unofficial Times for Day 1 Testing:
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Massa Ferrari 1:18.339 77 2. Wurz Honda 1:21.059 75 3. de la Rosa McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.566 113 4. Heidfeld BMW-Sauber 1:21.679 105 5. Piquet Renault 1:22.125 69 6. Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1:22.197 59 7. Nakajima Williams-Toyota 1:22.431 72 8. Glock Toyota 1:22.590 92 9. Liuzzi Force India-Ferrari 1:22.846 91
