Rain washes out another day at Barca
Wednesday, 20, February, 2008, 18:24
Ferrari's Felipe Massa topped the times in testing at Barcelona on Wednesday as cold and wet weather once again stymied teams' planned programmes.
Rain in the morning and showers throughout the day kept mileage down, and Massa's best time of 1m30.673s was just 0.002s quicker than Nico Rosberg's Tuesday benchmark.
Massa tried out revised aerodynamics on the F2008 while test driver Luca Badoer (third quickest on 1m31.288s) continued with the development of the standard car.
The Brazilian had a minor off-course excursion around the back of the circuit shortly before the lunch break but did not damage the car.
Red Bull Racing again showed promising pace, Mark Webber and David Coulthard finishing second and fourth fastest respectively after simulating qualifying runs.
Fernando Alonso was fifth quickest in the Renault R28
"Another disrupted day and we did not do many laps," lamented the Spaniard.
"It was too wet in the morning to do any running so we waited until the afternoon.
"We did some laps and tried some things in the wet and it was a chance to get used to driving without traction control and to improve the behaviour of the car in these conditions.
"Tomorrow the forecast is better -- we have been waiting for these conditions all week, so fingers crossed..."
Renault team-mate Nelson Piquet Jr was restricted to a single installation lap and did not set a time.
Nico Rosberg piled up the day's highest lap tally (97) en route to the sixth fastest time for Williams.
Team-mate Kazuki Nakajima and test driver Nico Hulkenberg shared the sister FW30, carrying out general set-up work.
"We spent the whole morning practising pit stops with the race team and both race drivers today," said test team manager Dickie Stanford.
"We completed approximately 40 pit stops in total.
"The wet conditions really played havoc with the session for the second day in succession but we're expecting a drier day tomorrow, during which we will again run all three drivers."
Toyota duo Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli clocked similar times although Glock blotted his copybook with an off at the first corner during the afternoon.
Trulli said: "It was another difficult day for testing so we just collected some data in order to understand how the car works in this type of weather.
"The positive thing is that we were able to learn about the tyre warm-up behaviour in these conditions.
"I'm returning to test here next week so hopefully we'll have better weather then.
"We have plenty of work ahead but when the conditions are normal I do feel we can be competitive."
Meanwhile BMW Sauber enjoyed a more productive day at Valencia, where morning rain cleared and the team was able to get in some dry running in the afternoon.
Robert Kubica completed 121 laps with a best time of 1m12.893s, while Nick Heidfeld logged 136 laps and managed a 1m13.542s.
Testing times from Barcelona (February 20)
1. MASSA Ferrari 1m30.673s
2. WEBBER Red Bull 1m31.213s
3. BADOER Ferrari 1m31.288s
4. COULTHARD Red Bull 1m31.654s
5. ALONSO Renault 1h31.731s
6. ROSBERG Williams 1m31.963s
7. GLOCK Toyota 1m32.407s
8. TRULLI Toyota 1m32.571s
9. HULKENBERG Williams 1m33.102s
10. NAKAJIMA Williams no time
11. PIQUET Renault no time
*Taken from http://www.itv-f1.com/Tags: F1 F2008 Felipe Massa Kimi Raikkonen Fernando Alonso Renault Red Bull Toyota Trulli Ferrari Bond Barcelona |
