BARCELONA TESTING April 14, 2008 - MASSA FLIES

(FROM AUTOSPORT)

(I meant to say Barthelona, sorry to my Spanish friends)




Felipe Massa set a blistering pace in Formula One's return to testing action, the Brazilian using slick tyres to finish over two and a half seconds in front of his closest rival at Barcelona.

Massa's best time of 1:18.339 put him 2.7 seconds ahead of Honda test driver Alex Wurz, who also set his best time on slick tyres.

The majority of the teams present at Barcelona were introducing new updates that will be raced for the first time when the European season kicks off in Spain later this month.

Massa's Ferrari team finally showed off a much rumoured radical new nose cone, with a hole on top of it, while McLaren tried a new rear wing - designed for 2009 regulations - and Renault tested several upgrades, including a new front wing.

McLaren's Pedro de la Rosa, who also tried out slicks, was third fastest, but over three seconds off Massa's pace. The Spaniard was the busiest man today with 113 laps covered.

Each team were allocated nine sets of slick tyres for the test, as Bridgestone continues work on preparing for the 2009 season, when grooved tyres will no longer be used.

All drivers, except BMW's Nick Heidfeld and Toyota's Timo Glock, sampled the new tyres today.

All the running done with slicks is outside the agreed testing mileage.

Despite not using the slick tyres, Heidfeld was fourth fastest, just a tenth behind de la Rosa, with Nelsinho Piquet down in fifth in the revamped Renault R28.

There were a total of four red flags today, caused by Glock, Piquet and Heidfeld spinning, and Williams's Kazuki Nakajima going off track late in the session.

"Today was a productive day and the team and mechanics did a good job," said Toyota's Glock. "Everybody was focused on the new bits and pieces that we have brought and trying to find the right way forward.

"In the end that's what we did. I made one small mistake in the morning and spun off but it didn't cost us too much running time. In the afternoon we collected a lot of data to look at and now we just have to fine-tune that.

"Hopefully overnight we can find the right direction from all the information we have gathered today. The time sheets might not show it yet but I'm happy with our work so far."


Today's times:

Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Massa Ferrari (B) 1:18.339 77
2. Wurz Honda (B) 1:21.059 75
3. de la Rosa McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:21.566 113
4. Heidfeld BMW-Sauber (B) 1:21.679 105
5. Piquet Renault (B) 1:22.125 69
6. Coulthard Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:22.197 59
7. Nakajima Williams-Toyota (B) 1:22.431 72
8. Glock Toyota (B) 1:22.590 92
9. Liuzzi Force India-Ferrari (B) 1:22.846 91

 

What's his problem, doesn't he know he "sucks"?

 

Go figure, guess no one told him. Some people have the nerve. Next thing you know he will win the 2008 WDC and really piss everybody off. Shame on Massa.

 

Hey Ron thanks for posting, I was looking at the photos of the new nose with the Slicks and those should have been the tires they are using this year. It just looks so right, just get all the crap off the sides of the car, cut the front wing, and rear diffuser and boy will it return to mechanical grip.

 

Whoa he was flying low.
Very good

 

Only problem is there weren't any real competition from the other cars with regards to performance. The only car/driver combo that I would call a ligit benchmark for Felipe's time would be Heidfeld in the BMW, but they weren't running the slicks.

 

I am amused to see the same guys who did not want to discuss Massa's testing problems pre-season because "it is only testing" now want to brag about Massa's testing numbers

 

With the words Massa and flies right next to each other, I assumed that he had taken flight and crashed into a barrier, rather than setting a fast lap.

 

Its pronounced Bar-sah-lona, not Bar-the-lona. I believe it has to do with the differnet dialects within Spain. Don't quote me on it though.

 

Sorry, but that is a really stupid assumption. Massa has never destroyed a car in a race for Ferrari, whereas even Michael Scumacher wrote off at least one I can remember, maybe more. There is nothing logical nor verifyable about Massa criticism. Absolutely nothing.

 

Wrong again, so I know better than to quote you. My friends from Barcelona, as do many Spaniards, us the Castillian dialect that pronounces "c's" like "th's". I lived there for a while, and it took me a few days before I realized that the majority of Spaniards do not have a lisp"th". In fact, my Colombian dermetologist is getting married to a Spanish deremetologist from BarTHElona, and he told me just last week that is the way he must now learn to pronounce the name of the city.

It is really Barthelona for most of them.

Your language lesson 101 for today.

 

2006 Australian GP, Massa puts it into the wall.
2006 Chinese GP
2006 Monaco GP (quali), Massa puts it in the wall.

It has happened before.

 

I also know quite a few Spaniards and they have always pronounced it Bar-sah-lona. Not to mention the soccer/football fans pronounce it Barcelona.

 

Just like in the USA, there are those that failed grammer.

Seriously, it is a Castillian thing. You cannot offend anyone by using the "th" pronounciation. I have never met a Spaniard that did not appreciate my knowledge of Castillian. But I was corrected years ago when I did not use it.

Like I said, I lived in Madrid. Did you?

 

Woah...Massa quicker than Wurz??!! Way to go Massa!

2008 WDC is in the bag!

 

Speaking of failed grammar.

 

You have also said before you don't speak a word of Spanish. Plus, Barcelona is in Catalonia where the C is pronounced as an S not a Th.

I do agree you could say it either way and get by. Back to Massa testing, are slicks really 3 seconds faster than the rest of the field?

 

Actually, now I do speak Spanish as my girlfriend does not speak a word of English. According to residents of that city, one I just called, they predominetly use the "th" version.

Forget it, OK?

 

Sounds like a plan. Are slicks really this much faster than grooved tires?

 

Yes, more contact patch on the track means more traction means you can put more power to the wheels which makes the car go faster.

 

I'm sure the compound isn't the same, though. Or is it?

EDIT: nevermind... http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=137629935&postcount=13

 

You are right Ron, in Barcelona, as all the north of Spain, a C will have a similar sound to the 'th', although not totally.

The S sound for the c is in the mid south part of Spain and the islands.

- Julio.

 

That´s true if you´re speaking in Catalan, wich is a different language than Spanish. But in Spanish it´s more often pronounced with a th.

But who cares? Back to racing.

 

Going fast in testing was never a problem for Massa. When he's two and a half seconds faster than the field on race day then i'll stop bashing him, till then, great testing times, but rather meaningless. Kimi wasn't even at the test, that I could tell.