Monday, August 2, 2010
So we left that floor behind this time and it's being re-designed and re-made in time for Spa."Seven times world champion Michael Schumacher, 12 races into his comeback with Mercedes at the age of 41 and after three years out, has already said he was focused on next season while Nico Rosberg said that "we can see that we can't win the championship this year any more".The Ferrari driver ended today's Valencia session 0.2s ahead of second-placed Pedro de la Rosa's Sauber, while Michael Schumacher immediately showed his pace by taking third place for Mercedes.
Although Massa had been given several outings in 2007 and 2008 Ferraris to prove his fitness following his horrific accident in Hungary last year, today's first test for the new F10 was his first fully-fledged F1 appearance since the crash.
He was fastest for the majority of the day, although de la Rosa briefly edged ahead for the newly-independent Sauber team in the middle of the afternoon.
Massa returned to the top in the final 15 minutes, though, lapping in 1m12.574s to beat the Spaniard by 0.210s.
The main talking point of the day is likely to be Schumacher's performance.
Red Bull have pioneered the blown diffuser and also an intriguing front wing that appears to flex notably despite passing scrutineering, while McLaren introduced the 'F-duct' that stalls the rear wing and gives greater speed on the straights.
"We can see that the F-duct style rear wing we still haven't completely solved," Brawn said. "The two major technologies we need to get on top of, the F-duct and blown diffuser, we're still not completely there.
"And what we have now become more acutely aware of is the lower front ride heights and front wing heights that particularly Red Bull have been able to achieve," he added.
"We have to work out how we can do that."
