Ferrari continued to mark itself out as the dark horse for title success in 2007, as
Felipe Massa and Luca Badoer utterly dominated the opening day of testing at an unusually damp
Jerez in southern Spain today.
Although he completed just over 50 laps, Massa was still nearly a full second quicker than the first non-Ferrari on the timing sheets, with test driver Badoer just over two tenths of a second behind the Brazilian. The pair concentrated on trying out new engine components and conducting set-up work on the 248
F1.
An impressive third on the list was recent
McLaren signing
Lewis Hamilton, with both the GP2 champion and the man he beat to the race seat, Pedro de la Rosa, focusing on
Bridgestone tyre work and wing and suspension developments.
Christian Klien showed well in fourth position as he settles in as the third driver at
Honda, with Franck Montagny fifth in the
Toyota, as the Japanese squad also devoted its attention to acclimatising to the latest Bridgestone rubber.
"It wasn't a bad day," Montagny surmised. "I was in this car last at
Silverstone in September, so it has been a long time. This morning it was wet and therefore a little bit difficult to run through our programme but we did find some interesting things.
"We worked on the set-up of the car and in the afternoon we were the first ones to put on the dry, grooved tyres. It was quite a good experience to test these new tyres and get a feeling for them, even though on this circuit it was a little challenging because of the track conditions this morning. We followed our programme and we did a good job - the car was quite quick today."
Driving alongside Montagny at Toyota was rising Japanese star and Toyota Young Driver Programme member Kohei Hirate, taking part in his first proper
Formula One test. The F3 Euroseries race winner and soon-to-be GP2 ace completed 73 laps over the course of the day and ended proceedings 15th, just over a second shy of Montagny's best.
