Felipe Massa

Felipe Massa was upbeat about the performance of the new Ferrari F10 after topping the times on the opening day of testing at Valencia.

The Brazilian, driving a current Formula 1 car for the first time since his accident at last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix, went quickest of all after over 100 laps of the Ricardo Tormo circuit.

Massa admitted it was good to be back in competitive action and felt the new Ferrari has not inherited the problems of its predecessor, with which the team endured a difficult 2009.

“For sure I’m happy to be back after such a long time watching the races in television, sometimes on track,” Massa told reporters at the end of the day.

“I think it was a very positive day. The car behaved very well. We managed to start and finish our programme like expected, even did a few more laps than expected. So I think it all went very well on the first day.

“The car behaved in a good direction in terms of… I felt it was Read the rest of this entry »

Felipe Massa marked his official return to contemporary Formula 1 machinery with the fastest time on the first morning of pre-season testing at Valencia in Spain on Monday.

Having seen early shakedown plans for his new Ferrari F10 abandoned because of bad weather in Italy over the weekend, Massa gave an early indication about the promise of his team’s 2010 challenger with a strong run early on.

Although testing times are not necessarily truly representative of form, Ferrari will at least be encouraged by the fact that the car has appeared to hit the ground running on the opening day of this three-day test.

Less than two-tenths behind Massa’s best lap of 1m13.088s was Pedro de la Rosa in the BMW Sauber C29, showing that his team’s lack of sponsors and BMW works involvement have not been a hindrance to the efforts made over the winter to produce the new car.

Third fastest Nico Rosberg Read the rest of this entry »

Felipe Massa has no concerns about going up against Fernando Alonso at Ferrari this season, despite the high expectations surrounding his Spanish team-mate.

Alonso has joined Ferrari with his sights firmly set on bringing the world championship back to Maranello.

And although most of the pre-season focus has been on Alonso, Massa insists he is not worried about being left in the shadow of his team-mate – having experienced a similar situation alongside Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen over recent years.

“The expectations as far as my team-mate is concerned I’ve been living with for many years now,” he said at the launch of the new car in Maranello on Thursday. “When there’s a new driver at Ferrari, there are great expectations and the goal is to work well as a team, to be complete.

“I’ll have a very strong team-mate. I’ve always done Read the rest of this entry »

Ferrari is confident that its all-new F10 design is a big step forward over last year’s car, as it eyes a full-scale world championship assault this season.

The team’s 2010 challenger was unveiled in Maranello on Thursday morning, with the Italian squad hoping that its early focus on the new car will see a return to form after the difficulties of last season.

Technical director Aldo Costa said: “We think this new car is a good step forward in aero development, car settings and also engine – and we are pretty much convinced we have taken a big step forward.

“We cannot know what our competitors have done, and only during the first race will we realise that. But it carries all our passion and the determination of a group that wants to forget what happened last year and go back to being competitive from the very first race.”

Ferrari began work on the F10 as early as Read the rest of this entry »