Motor racing

Massa fastest in first tests

JEREZ, Spain — Ferrari dri-ver Felipe Massa clocked the fastest time of Formula One’s opening pre-season test in his new F138 car yesterday, giving the Italian team hope it may have overcome the lack of speed that spoiled its title chase last year.

Mercedes, meanwhile, rebounded from an incident-packed opening two days with Nico Rosberg completing a session-high 148 laps at the Jerez circuit. Rosberg’s car had spouted flames and smoke on Tuesday, and the next day new teammate Lewis Hamilton crashed his vehicle into a barrier.

New Sauber driver Esteban Gutiérrez had the second-most laps with 110 and world champion Sebastian Vettel was third with 102.

Massa, who is representing Ferrari alone with Fernando Alonso not attending the tests in his home country, recorded a fastest lap of one minute, 17.879 seconds. Rosberg and Vettel were next. The Brazilian’s pace is a good sign for Ferrari, which saw the championship slip through Alonso’s grasp down the stretch last season, mainly because he just simply couldn’t keep up with Vettel’s Red Bull. Ferrari’s new test driver Pedro de la Rosa will take over today.

Vettel was pleased with his first real drive in this year’s car after teammate Mark Webber had gone out during the first two days of the test.

“It was great to get back in the car, to get rid of the rust and to get back in the groove again,” Vettel said. “The first feeling is good and the car is working well. It’s difficult to judge the speed, but in terms of reliability it looks pretty good.”

The season begins with the Australian Grand Prix on March 17 after two more sets of tests in Barcelona.

This year’s Formula One title race looks wide open to Red Bull’s triple world champion Vettel. Asked whether he still saw Britain’s Hamilton as a contender now that the 2008 champion has moved from race winners McLaren to the Mercedes team that was far less competitive last year, the German nodded.

“Yes, of course. I think the way that least season started, with a lot of different teams and drivers winning the races, there’s nothing that speaks against it happening again this year,” he told reporters after his first drive of the new Red Bull RB9.

Last year started with seven different winners in the opening seven races and ended as a duel between Vettel and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso as the top teams got on top of the Pirelli tyres. Pirelli have changed the compounds for this year with the aim of encouraging overtaking and introducing more stops.

AP, Reuters