** Interesting note on Ferrari aero.... The First Day Gossip From Valencia Tuesday 2nd February 2010 A review of what's being said after round one of winter testing... * Pressure is already been applied to Nico Rosberg. According to one respected F1 correspondent, the '24-year-old looked and sounded apprehensive' and was described as 'not as calm as usual' on the opening day of testing. The youngster finished Monday more than half a second behind his team-mate in the timesheets and has been further undermined by the comments of Rubens Barrichello. And the Brazilian knew exactly what he was setting in motion when he publicly advised Rosberg "to get out of there" following Schumi's blistering quick return to action: "Tomorrow you will see the newspapers saying, 'Rubens tells Nico to get out of there'", he predicted with word-perfect prescience. A future career as a headline-writer awaits... But it's difficult to understand the motivation behind Barrichello's comments. If it was meant as a warning then it was hardly one that Rosberg will never have heard before. So why say it? * A detailed look at the timesheets, however, should have provided reassurance to Rosberg and his supporters. Although the headline news was the half-a-second gap between the two Mercedes drivers, the fact of the matter is that conditions in the afternoon - Schumacher's first roll of a wheel was timed at approximately 3.31pm - were far more conducive to fast running. As a guideline, note the times of Felipe Massa: In the morning session, the Ferrari driver topped the timesheets with a fastest lap of 1:13.088 before finishing the day on top with a time of 1:12.574. And all of his fastest laps were set during the same time of day when Schumacher was running and setting his own quickest laps. As you've probably already spotted, Massa's improvement amounted to a little over half a second - almost the identical amount of time as the much-highlighted end-of-day gap between Schumacher and Rosberg. * Rosberg was also hampered by poor visibility. The German complained he was struggling to see out of the car with team boss Ross Brawn accepting that he "did not fit the car properly". A clue to which driver Mercedes had in mind when they designed their car? Probably not. The issue is more likely just a consequence of Rosberg's sitting position - he's officially listed as being four centimetres taller than Schumacher. * Though Monday will be remembered chiefly for the returns to action of Schumacher, Felipe Massa and F1 in general, the day also recorded another landmark in F1's cautious embrace of modern technology: The first-ever launch of a new car on twitter. "Williams are not launching as such, when the car rolls out at 10am, that will be its debut," announced Claire Williams, daughter of team boss Sir Frank, via her page at approximately 9am. Cue frantic demands for the first pictures of the FW32 when it broke cover in the Valencia pitlane... * If PF1 received a pound for every time it heard the reminder that it is impossible to read much into Monday's lap times then it would probably be able to afford a F1 car of our own. And a glitzy launch. However, it did appear to be the case that while Ferrari and Mercedes, at the hands of Massa and Schumacher, chased some quick lap times at the end of the day, McLaren and Renault did not deviate from their planned programme of long runs and set-up checks. Sauber had a positive day, and surprised many by separating Ferrari from Mercedes. This year's Brawn or a team in need of good news to attract sponsorship? So far the cynics are winning by a landslide against the optimists... * But there was no quibbling with the verdict that Ferrari - the 'mast' that was fashioned on to the roof of Felipe Massa's car is a pitot tube that measures airspeed - have made a strong start. "Ferrari have clearly got a good car," observed Ross Brawn, with Massa himself commenting: "I felt it was an easier car to drive compared to last year's." Rumours have abounded in recent weeks that the team received some alarmingly moderate wind-tunnel results over the winter and that a B-spec car is already being rushed into production. Not so, says James Allen. "My sources suggest that what has happened is that they recruited a new head of aerodynamics from Toyota in December and he brought a solution for a radical new diffuser with a hole the size of a sheet of A3 paper!," he wrote on his latest blog. "It's worth a lot in extra downforce and so Ferrari may well be building an update package around it, possibly for the first race if they can build it in time." * By scheduling accident rather than apparent deliberate design, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton will be the centre of attention today. Of the sport's five box-office drivers, he alone will be in action on Day Two: Schumacher has been given the day off - Rosberg is the only Mercedes driver on view this Tuesday - while Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso will make their first appearances for McLaren and Ferrari respectively on Wednesday. So all eyes will fall on Hamilton and McLaren's MP4-25 with the team's disastrous start to 2009 still fresh in the memory. Gary Paffett's endorsement of the new charger on Monday was firm but not exactly fulsome. Expect plenty of negative and doom-ridden speculation if Hamilton does not end the day on top or ascloseasthat to Massa... Pete Gill
