Tuesday, December 12, 2006

F1 Testing

Formula 1 resumed winter testing at Jerez last week where the F1 teams will conduct an extended 6 day program. During the first 3 days of testing the leaders of the time sheets fluctuated as normal…

Day 1 saw little change from Barcelona with Ferrari continuing to lead the way. Felipe Massa continued his clean sweep of topping the time sheets, fastest at 1:19.462. Luca Badoer in the second Ferrari was second at 1:19.708 with Malaren’s Lewis Hamilton third at 1:20.245…

Day 2 saw rookie Lewis Hamilton break Massa’s stranglehold atop the time sheets. Hamilton finished first at 1:18.684. Hamilton was slightly overshadowed by Kimi Raikkonen’s first public Ferrari appearance. Raikkonen was an observer for the day along with having a 20 minute chat with Massa. Raikkonen is under McLaren contract until the end of the year and will most likely not see any testing until next January.

Second quickest was Renault’s Giancarlo Fisichella at 1:19.685, with Honda’s ruben Barrichello third at 1:19.784…

Day 3 saw inclement weather hinder testing with rain washing out any hopes of quick laps in the morning. Later in the day Barrichello nipped Honda tester James Rossiter for top honors at 1:20.008 while Rossiter was second at 1:20.171 upon logging a massive 108 laps. Hamilton continued his impressive showing by finishing third at 1:20.325. Both Ferrari’s uncharacteristically dropped towards the bottom of the grid after both cars stopped on track during the final hour of testing…

Testing will resume on Monday with Marco Andretti making his testing debut with Honda later this week…