F1-Blog

Testing from a lot of the teams (9 of the 11) started in earnest yesterday at Jerez in Spain.

It was a mixed bag weather wise, and this caused some of the teams to run a reduced test day, and others seemed to take advantage and try running different wet weather configurations.

The day seemed to be dominated a bit by the Ferrari drivers, with Kimi showing the fastest time of the day. The Ferrari seemed to handle the wet weather well considering the drivers are no longer helped out with traction control systems.

It was not completely flawless for the Italian champions though, as Massa’s car showed a hickup, and he lost track time to a mechanical fault that Ferrari have not said the cause of, suspect a gearbox issue though as it was a relatively quick fix by the team.

Toro Rosso, and Sebastian Vettel showed the car had a decent pace in the conditions (also running the Ferrari engine remember). He took the third fastest time, with newcomer Sebastien Bourdais taking the 6th fastest time in the sister car.

The McLaren MP4-23 was piloted by Pedro de la Rossa and Heikki Kovalainen today. Pedro did not run in the heavy water in the morning session, and it seemes that Heikki was testing new components. With this in mind, setting the fourth and fifth fastest times does not look too bad for the new McLaren.

Red Bull only had the one car out today, with David Coulthard at the wheel, and it seems at the moment at least, the ‘junior’ team of STR are ahead of them on pace. Although neither of the teams are running their 2008 cars at the test, but rather modified 2007 ‘B’ spec cars.

Toyota had both their 2007 and 2008 cars on track. Jarno Trulli got to drive the new TF108, with new team mate Timo Glock running a modified TF107 today. Glock will get hold of the 2008 challenger for Wednesday running though, and is said to be looking forward to it - “Today has been reasonable, I did quite a few laps in the TF107 and even though it is last year’s car we can still get more information about the new gearbox and also how the car behaves without traction control, especially in the wet conditions this morning. We ran through our program with no reliability problems but unfortunately I had a spin early in the afternoon when I touched the damp kerb and lost control which was a bit frustrating. I am excited by the chance to drive the new car tomorrow. The car has a totally new aerodynamic concept and so far everything has gone well with Jarno driving. Now I am really looking forward to getting the chance to drive the TF108 myself, it should be an interesting experience.”

Renault showed off one of their new drivers, Nelson Piquet Jnr put in most of his laps during the afternoon. The Renault team decided that the track condition was not ideal for either of the tyres at the test in the morning, and therefore ran very few laps during the worst of the weather. Nelson “I would have certainly liked the chance to get more time in the car today, but the conditions this morning were not ideal for either wet or dry tyres and so we had to wait for the weather to improve,” said the young Brazilian. “I’m still happy to get back on track for the first time this year and get my preparations underway. I am aware that there are lots of things that need to be done, and there is a lot of hard work ahead, but that is why we are here.”

Renault will be debuting their ‘Golden Boy’ Fernando Alonso today (Tuesday), so expect the information and pictures from that session tomorrow.

Nico Rosberg put in a decent performance in the Williams to take the seventh fastest time, and was backed up by a decent showing from the teams Toyota backed test driver Kazuki Nakajima.

Viantonio Liuzzi was also out in the Force India car, as was James Rossiter for Super Aguri.

Unofficial Monday times from Jerez:
1. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:19.845
2. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 1:20.123
3. Sebastian Vettel, Toro Rosso, 1:20.732
4. Pedro de la Rosa, McLaren, 1:20.883
5. Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 1:20.936
6. Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Rosso, 1:20.997
7. Nico Rosberg, Williams, 1:21.143
8. Jarno Trulli, Toyota, 1:21.344
9. Nelson Piquet Jr, Renault, 1:21.595
10. David Coulthard, Red Bull, 1:21.745
11. Vitantonio Liuzzi, Force India, 1:23.035
12. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams, 1:23.134
13. Timo Glock, Toyota, 1:24.351
14. James Rossiter, Super Aguri, 1:34.852