Massa: We’re working in the right direction

The penultimate day of testing before the Bahrain Grand Prix was covered in rain, which slowed down the programmes of the eleven teams present today at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona. Just after 10:20am a consistent drizzle started to wet the track and made the work on the track in the morning quite insignificant. In the afternoon some more rain fell, but it wasn’t enough to fit the car with the wets. Just like it had happened in Jerez, Felipe Massa, whose work programme was slightly changed, wasn’t very lucky.

Despite a long break from 12:30pm to 2:30pm, when the team anticipated some works on the car to exploit the available time between today afternoon and tomorrow as good as possible, the Brazilian was the fourth fastest man on the track with 115 laps. In particular Felipe simulated another race, successfully completed by the end of the day. The fastest lap, with a time of 1.22.344, was driven in the simulation’s last stint.

"We managed to drive many miles, which is always positive,” Felipe Massa told Ferrari website. "We finished another race simulation without any problems, which helped us to better understand the tyre behaviour with different fuel loads and under different track conditions. I’m satisfied with today. We’re working in the right direction for the start of the Championship."

After Alonso during the last two days today Massa could try out the new aerodynamic solutions the F10 is using during this test: "I had a very positive impression: you can feel more grip and more downforce. It’s encouraging, because it means that we made another step ahead compared to Jerez."

Tomorrow is the last day of testing and Felipe Massa hopes that there won’t be any rain: “Let’s hope the weather improves: it would be important to finish the tests on a dry track to collect some more important data regarding the car under various conditions, also with less fuel on board."