Alonso, driving the Ferrari F10 for the first time, tuned in a best time of 1.11.470 after running 127 laps of the Circuit Ricardo Tormo. His appearance pleased the hordes of his countrymen who turned out to see him, and his times no doubt pleased the Ferrari management.
“We are quite satisfied with the first test,” explained BMW Sauber’s technical director, Willy Rampf in a statement on the official Formula One Web site. “As well as being reliable, it was important to see that the car responded to changes in the way we expected.
Michael Schumacher again finished third fastest, putting in 82 laps in the new Mercedes GP W01. Although he had to curt his day short due to mechanical problem, he was positive about the experience.
“I’m very happy to have been back in a Formula One car this week,” he said on Formula1.com. “We had a short run on Monday and then almost a full day today which has been good. The experience has been very positive and the car is running smoothly with just a small hydraulic leak which stopped us slightly early. The main focus is on reliability and doing as many laps as we can so we’re not too worried about looking at the lap times right now.”
Reigning World Driver’s Champion Jenson Button took his first tuner behind the wheel of the new McLaren MP4-25. Though he was 1.5 seconds off the pace, he and the team were satisfied with the results. Pre-season testing is more about trying different set-ups than it is about absolute speeds.
Three days of testing at Spain’s Jerez circuit begins on February 10 followed by three more days beginning February 17.
Force India is expected to bring its new VJM03 the the Jerez tests, and Virgin Racing plans to test its VR-01.
Lotus plans to join the second round of Jerez testing on the 17th.
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