Jerez Day 1: Massa heads the field

Massa headed today's Jerez session

As the Formula 1 paddock rolls into Jerez for the next round of testing, Felipe Massa leads the timesheets after day 1.

He set his fast times early, and stayed on top for most of the day. Sergio Perez was over 7 tenths behind in the Ferrari-powered Sauber, while Mark Webber was third.

Lewis Hamilton, Timo Glock and Adrian Sutil were all trying out their 2011 cars for the first time, while HRT did not attend this test, instead moving to Monza for a few filming days with Pirelli.

Daniel Ricciardo only drove in the morning, but was still 4th. Hamilton was happy with the improvements of his MP4-26 in 5th, and Jaime Alguersuari was 6th, sharing his seat with Ricciardo.

Adrian Sutil had only 28 laps today, while Vitaly Petrov and Nico Rosberg were 8th and 9th. Jarno Trulli was 10th and Timo Glock 11th. Pastor Maldonado was last, stuck in the pits because of a rear wing problem, and only did 14 laps.

Three red flags disrupted today’s session. Sergio Perez stopped out on track in the morning, while Rosberg stopped later on. Vitaly Petrov later spun his Renault into the gravel.

Pirelli brought all 4 tyre compounds to this test, and drivers seem to be happy with the new rubber so far.

Hamilton drove his car for the first time, and appears impressed:

“How it felt today was definitely a step forward.

Whether that’s aero or mechanical, I haven’t yet identified exactly which part it is but 
it’s a good thing that it feels good initially.

My initial response was that it felt quite comfortable to drive and there’s certain areas 
I noticed particularly that were quite a good improvement on last year.

We didn’t do that many runs today, we had quite a lot of programmes to get through. So I 
was really doing what a test driver would do: just go out and do this test, that test. We 
did that all day generally.

The car feels good, it’s positive. My initial thought was it’s a good step better than 
last year so I was quite happy with it.”

Times from Jerez Day 1:

Pos  Driver             Car                   Time       Gap
 1.  Felipe Massa       Ferrari               1.20.709
 2.  Sergio Perez       Sauber-Ferrari        1.21.483   0.774
 3.  Mark Webber        Red Bull-Renault      1.21.522   0.813
 4.  Daniel Ricciardo   Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1.21.755   1.046
 5.  Lewis Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes      1.21.914   1.205
 6.  Jaime Alguersuari  Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1.22.689   1.980
 7.  Adrian Sutil       Force India-Mercedes  1.23.472   2.763
 8.  Vitaly Petrov      Renault               1.23.504   2.795
 9.  Nico Rosberg       Mercedes              1.23.963   3.254
10.  Jarno Trulli       Lotus-Renault         1.24.458   3.749
11.  Timo Glock         Virgin-Cosworth       1.25.086   4.377
12.  Pastor Maldonado   Williams-Cosworth     1.34.968   14.259

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