UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Massa remains fastest

Ferrari top final session

The final group test of the winter drew to a close at Sakhir, Bahrain, this afternoon with little change in the running order from this morning.

Felipe Massa, fastest on 1:29.989, finished running early having completed his programme, yet still went away quickest by an impressive margin.

Second and third, an improvement to recent tests came the Renault pair of Heikki Kovalainen and Giancarlo Fisichella, the young Finn four tenths of a second behind Massa and just a tenth ahead of his team mate.

Kimi Raikkonen ran the afternoon with a different aerodynamic set up to that he used in the morning, finishing the day a shade behind Fisichella and a similar margin ahead of Fernando Alonso in the McLaren MP4-22.

Sixth, and a further half a second back, was Rubens Barrichello in the Honda RA107, the Brazilian getting a colossal 118 laps into the days work as the Honda ran reliably. His team mate Jenson Button finished the day with 14th fastest time, albeit less than eight tenths slower than Barrichello.

Three tenths off Barrichello, in seventh, was Pedro de la Rosa, the Spaniard one of the few improvers this afternoon as Mclaren put some decent mileage on the silver cars. De la Rosa managed a total of 90 laps, Alonso over 110.

Scott Speed’s eighth fastest time, one and a half seconds down on the pace setting lap, represents an impressive achievement for the Scuderia Toro Rosso, the Ferrari-engined car clocking up an enormous 124 laps before close of play.

Notably, Speed out-paced the two Renault-powered RB3’s of parent company Red Bull Racing, David Coulthard and Mark Webber setting ninth and 11th best times, the Scot jus a few hundredths slower than Speed and a tenth ahead of his Australian team mate.

In tenth today was Nick Heidfeld, the BMW-Sauber team not putting in the fast laps that we have become accustomed to seeing, concentrating instead on hydraulic and cooling issues in preparation for the opening race. Robert Kubica set 12th best time in the second F1.07.

Little improvement was evident at Toyota as Ralf Schumacher and Franck Montagny completed what has been a hard couple of weeks for the Cologne based outfit, and coming home in 13th and 15th positions. At least the reliability of the TF107 appears to be improving, as the two men managed over 200 laps between them today.

Final runner, in the final position, was Takuma Sato in the Super Aguri.

Today signals the end of winter testing for the majority of teams here in Bahrain, and for Williams and Spyker who are running in Spain, although both Red Bull and Toyota are scheduled to run one more day at unspecified European venues, and Luca Badoer is pencilled in to shake down the race-ready Ferrari’s at Fiorano in the next week.

If the overall times can be taken as an indicator it would appear that, as Felipe Massa insists, the red cars have an advantage going into the first race at Melbourne in two weeks time.

As usual, UpdateF1 will bring you full coverage of practice, qualifying, and the Australian Grand Prix.

Written: Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:26:10