Felipe Massa has declared his return to the cockpit of a Ferrari on a grand prix track a success.

The Brazilian drove a 2008 car at Spain's Circuit de Catalunya as he continues his comeback from a fractured skull suffered in a crash last year.

"It was a perfect way to optimise my form here in Barcelona," Massa said.

"I'm really happy that I had this new opportunity to get behind the wheel of an F1 car. I can't wait to sit in the new car and get stuck in."

Massa had previously twice driven a 2007 Ferrari at the team's Fiorano and Mugello test tracks in Italy last year.

Ferrari said Massa completed more than 186 miles - effectively a grand prix distance - in the car that had been used by MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi over the previous two days.

The test was aimed at helping him gain confidence ahead of the debut of Ferrari's 2010 car next month.

Massa will be the first to drive the new car at a test in Valencia on 1 February.

His new team-mate, double world champion Fernando Alonso, will take over on the subsequent two days of the test, where McLaren and Mercedes - formerly Brawn - will also give their new cars their debut.

The extra testing day in Barcelona presented Massa with an opportunity to sharpen his driving skills following the life-threatening incident at the Hungaroring, which left him in a coma and with fears his left eye had been permanently damaged.

Our new layout is online for the upcoming 2010 season. Content will be updated over the next coming days, along with any bug fixes.

Please post problems, comments, etc here if you wish.

/ FerrariF1World

Even for a man of his high standards, after three years away Michael Schumacher would be forgiven for setting a modest target for his comeback season. The seven-time world champion, however, is clearly feeling as ambitious as ever and, alongside former Ferrari colleague Ross Brawn who heads up his new team Mercedes, Schumacher is aiming to win both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles.

“We want to achieve something together,” the 41 year-old German said on his official website. “The line-up we have here is pretty unique - with Ross and his world championship winning team, with the know-how of Mercedes and with the best engine at the moment - and we want to use that. We have a clear aim: we want to win the championships. That's what we will fight for from the beginning. That is my personal standard too.”

If his explicit goal to win both titles wasn’t enough to worry his younger rivals, Schumacher is also keen to point out that he has lost none of his hunger for success during his spell away from Formula One competition. In fact he believes he’s stronger thanks to the break.

“After my retirement at the end of 2006 I was very happy,” he explained. “I felt relieved and free. It was good for me to be quiet for those three years. It really feels as if my batteries have been fully recharged. My energy is back completely. I have really noticed how the prickle has returned and how motivated I am, because I am looking forward to this competition so much.”

Indeed, Schumacher is looking forward to racing again so much that last week he tested a GP2 car to get back into the swing of things ahead of his F1 testing return next month. After being forced to cancel his planned comeback as a stand-in for the injured Felipe Massa last year because of a recurring neck injury, he said it was good to be back in the cockpit feeling fit and well.

“It went better than I had expected,” he added. “I immediately felt well in the car, it was as if I had never gone. I feel extremely fresh and fit. That was one of the reasons why I felt so good in the car in Jerez. But then, Formula One is another thing, the G-forces are higher, so it’s not really comparable. That is why I am looking forward so much to testing in February. Only then will the old feelings be completely back. I can't wait to be back there.”

Schumacher is expected to sample Mercedes’ 2010 car at the first F1 test session of the year, which starts at the Spanish track of Valencia on February 1.

Source: Formula1.com

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa has made arrangements to test a 2008-spec Formula One car at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya on Friday.

Massa, who will return to F1 racing this season following his accident during qualifying for the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, will use the F2008 which MotoGP world champion Valentino Rossi is currently putting through its paces at the Spanish track.

It will be the third time Massa has been back behind the wheel of a Formula One car since he recovered from the life-threatening head injuries he sustained at the Hungaroring last July. He tested an F2007 on two occasions late last year in Italy.

"As the car and the track were available I thought it would be helpful to go onto the track for a day to continue gaining confidence in a Formula One car," Massa explained on Ferrari’s official website. "After the days in Fiorano and Mugello this will be a nice opportunity to get back driving on such an interesting and challenging track."

Rossi, who is sampling F1 power for the sixth time as a reward for winning his seventh world title, will finish his two-day test on Thursday. Despite some wet weather in the morning, his opening day in the car on Wednesday went well, with the Italian covering 68 laps and clocking a best time of 1m 25.200s.

“I'm happy,” said the 30 year-old after climbing out of the cockpit. “It was a good test, although it was wet in the morning and without grip I had some problems. Fortunately the track dried off in the afternoon, and I could use the slicks and improve my lap times.”

Source: Formula1.com

Bernie Ecclestone's latest controversial comments about introducing shortcuts to Formula 1 to improve overtaking has focused attention on the latest rule changes to be introduced into the sport.

Ecclestone's idea, dismissed by former Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine on 5 Live on Thursday evening as "horrible", is the latest in a series of proposals by him rooted in his belief that the decision to ban refuelling in 2010 will have a detrimental effect on the racing.

But that will not necessarily be the case - grands prix will look different but strategy, and the use of it, will still play a crucial role.

With just two weeks before winter testing starts in Spain on 1 February, and teams hurriedly putting the finishing touches to their new cars, we take a look at the key factors that will shape the races this season.

The first big headache for teams will be calculating the exact amount of fuel to put in the car.

Engineers will have had enough time in winter testing to figure out their fuel consumption rates under different weather/track conditions and engine settings, and can use a lot of their data from last year so this shouldn't be a problem.

Where the headache starts is trying to carry as little fuel as possible to complete the race.

Three-second pit stops are the target - some teams think they can do it quicker even than that

Dominic Harlow, chief engineer at Force India, says: "We'll be working hard on saving fuel during the race.

"Even 1% too much fuel could end up costing you a position so it will be critical to carry exactly the right amount. If you finish a race with 5kg excess fuel in the tank, it will have cost you 10 seconds during the race."

So with very tight safety margins and even the temptation to under-fuel their cars in order to be quicker, potentially the biggest embarrassment for the teams will be running out of petrol.

There will be moments when drivers need to conserve fuel to make sure they finish the race - they'll have to slow down as much as they dare, while trying to keep others behind.

Engine mixture settings will be critical: Drivers will be leaning out their fuel mix when they can, for instance stuck in traffic or behind a safety car. This will allow them to enrich it when needed for more speed.

In this regard, Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello may be at an advantage, being the only two drivers in the field who drove in the last non-refuelling season, 1993.

With no refuelling, pit stops will be for tyres only. Remember that rule about having to use both compounds of Bridgestone tyre during the race? That's still in the regulations, so drivers must make at least one pit stop.

Ahead of a meeting of the F1 Commission on 1 February, there is currently a lot of discussion between the teams and the FIA about how many stops cars have to make.

The desire seems to be for two mandatory stops.

This might spice up the show and introduce scope for mistakes, but would remove the intriguing prospect of a driver such as Jenson Button who is easy on his tyres making just one stop, while racing against someone who needs to make two stops because they work their tyres harder.

The opportunity for the tortoise to beat the hare would be lost.

Obviously teams want the fastest tyre on the car as much as possible, so there's a lot to be learned over the forthcoming tests about which tyre to run and when.

A basic approach is to run the harder compound first, when the car is heavy with fuel, then the softer tyre later on in the race when the car is lighter and the track has more rubber on it, which will not punish the tyre as much.

Mercedes boss Ross Brawn is acknowledged as a master of strategy

Again, there are ongoing discussions about whether to make cars start the race on the tyres with which they finished qualifying. This looks like it will happen, and will introduce an interesting variable into the mix, forcing front-running cars to try to qualify on hard tyres or race on soft tyres.

Pit stops will be much quicker this year. Teams will be competing in the pit lane as well as on the track, as mechanics look to break records for the fastest pit stop time.

Three seconds stationary is the target; some teams think they can do it quicker than that.

Interestingly, engineers believe the limiting factor in pit stops will be how quickly the mechanics on the front and rear jacks can perform their duties.

The wheels come off and on quite fast; the wheel guns tighten the nut at 3,000rpm and, with 'spinner' wheel covers banned and a self-locking wheel nut, that operation is fairly brisk as well.

So drivers will be waiting for the front and rear jack men to lift the car quickly to allow the tyre men to do their job. The front jack man in particular will have to be quick on his feet at the end of the stop!

Total time lost in the pits will therefore be around 16 seconds at an average circuit.

Traffic will play a major part in deciding strategy with pit stops remaining fluid, being decided by tacticians on the pit wall.

Stopping before a rival you are racing will generally be an advantage - as cars will always be quicker after a stop than before it because new tyres will give extra pace and the fuel load will constantly be coming down.

But the trade-off will be that if you stop too early, then you risk being slow on worn tyres at the end of the race, and vulnerable to drivers on fresher tyres.

In this respect the pit stop window will be much larger than in recent years, when fuel dictated the pit stops.

In 2009, cars at the front typically started a race with around 50kg of fuel, adding 60kg at each stop on an average two-stop strategy.

This year they will have 170kg of fuel in the car's fuel tank at the start of the race. That's around 220 litres of petrol.

There have been concerns over whether the extra weight of fuel will put tyres under greater strain, leading to more problems.

Pit stops will be much quicker in 2010 without the need to add fuel

But the 170 kg of fuel is far less than the approximately 1,000kg weight already put through the tyres from downforce, so extra fuel weight shouldn't be a factor.

A heavy car, though, will inevitably handle differently, which will have an effect on tyre wear and degradation. How much it affects each car and driver will be interesting to see.

Then there are flat-spots - caused by lengthy periods of locked wheels.

The front tyres are narrower this year, so there is a smaller contact patch on the front wheels. We could well see drivers lock their brakes trying to slow down their heavily fuelled cars for tight corners.

If this happens, teams may be more inclined to change a flat-spotted set of tyres than in previous years, when an extra stop would have ruined their fuel strategy.

Kimi Raikkonen had direct experience of this at the Nurburgring in 2005, when vibrations from a flat-spotted tyre broke the McLaren's rear suspension, costing him the race win.

As last year, there may be one compound of tyre that doesn't work particularly well in certain temperatures on certain circuits. Both compounds are required, so trying to get one out of the way will be a decision taken on the pit wall when the opportunity presents itself.

Starting a race with an unfavoured tyre might be a tactic used again, especially if a team feels they are out of position or want to get the unfavoured tyre out of the way as soon as possible, as Brawn did in Monaco last year.

606: DEBATE if the commercial rights holder of Formula One can shamelessly propose such a cuckoo idea, then a nobody like me can come up with 'cukooer' ideas and still hold his chin up klotnews

Manufacturers Bridgestone are still undecided on which compounds will be brought to which race and if they will be using consecutive or non-consecutive compounds, something that spiced up the races last season.

Much is still to be decided, but with only 16 days testing in February to get all the answers they need, F1's engineers and drivers have a lot to learn in a very short time.

Valentino Rossi has begun preparations for his latest Ferrari Formula 1 test by trying out the team’s brand new simulator at its Maranello base.

The seven-time motorcycle world champion has been handed another opportunity to test one of the Italian squad’s F1 cars as a reward for winning the 2009 MotoGP title, the 31-year-old to drive a two-year old F2008 for two days at Barcelona from next Wednesday.

On Friday Rossi visited Maranello to have several meetings with the team’s engineers before completing some virtual laps in its new simulator, which came on line before Christmas following two years in production.

The Italian superstar then took the opportunity to complete some real track laps in Ferrari’s new 458 Italia road car at its nearby Fiorano test track.

Former Ferrari team boss Ross Brawn believes it is likely to take Michael Schumacher several races into his comeback season before he gets fully back to his best - but thinks the German can still win an eighth world title in his first year back.

Formula 1’s current testing restrictions mean that the now 41-year-old Schumacher will get just seven or eight days of track testing in new team Mercedes’s 2010 car ahead of the first race, although he did complete a useful three days of driving time in a GP2 development car last week.

Mercedes team boss Brawn is therefore not necessarily expecting Schumacher to automatically pick up where he left off four years ago straight away – but is in no doubt it won't take too long for the German legend to again display the kind of form that made him F1’s most successful ever driver.

“The time is short,” he told Germany’s Bild newspaper.

“I don’t think that Michael can just win the first race.

“He will need a few races before he becomes used to the other cars and the many new drivers.

“Then I hope to see the familiar Schumi.

“That was always his strength: he could adapt incredibly quickly and learn.”

Felipe Massa says he is already getting on well with new team-mate Fernando Alonso and thinks they will help each other to improve further alongside each other at Ferrari.

Since Alonso was announced as Kimi Raikkonen’s replacement for the 2010 season, there have been suggestions that there could be tensions between Ferrari’s all-Latin pairing with them having clashed on track in the past and the fact both are eyeing the world championship.

Massa and Alonso have spent this week together on the slopes in Italy at Ferrari sponsor Marlboro’s annual Wrooom media event and, speaking to journalists in his first press conference of the year, the team’s established driver said he expected them to develop a good working relationship which will help drive the team’s development.

And having already partnered world champions Jacques Villeneuve, Michael Schumacher and Raikkonen in his seven-season Formula 1 career, Massa believes working alongside two-time champion Alonso will also be beneficial for him.

"During my career I’ve always had extraordinary team-mates,” he said at the ski event in Madonna di Campiglio.

“This is what enabled me to learn and to improve, because you can learn a lot from a different driving style, from the way he sets up the car, how he goes into corners and how he brakes.

“Naturally we’ll both fight to stay ahead, because that’s our sport. Fernando is an extremely talented driver and I’ll try to help him with my experience in Ferrari.”

Ferrari has announced that it will launch its 2010 Formula 1 car at its Maranello base on Thursday 28 January, four days before pre-season testing begins in Valencia.

“We’ll present the car on 28 January in Maranello with an event for the media and our partners, while our fans will be able to follow the presentation live on Ferrari.com,” team principal Stefano Domenicali said during the Marlboro-hosted ski event in Madonna di Campiglio.

Ferrari has already revealed that its new challenger will have the type number 281.

Domenicali said the team was focusing on being ready to hit the ground running from the first race, and in particular was determined to avoid the reliability problems that meant it started both the 2008 and 2009 campaigns poorly.

“One important element that unfortunately was not really good in the last couple of years was the first grands prix, when we had problems with reliability,” he noted.

“We’ve worked a lot on that so I’m expecting to see results. It’s important to keep our concentration because the season will be very, very long.

“We’re working hard to recover the performance gap that we had last year. The numbers look quite interesting, but as usual we need to wait and see what will be the situation.

The 2010 sporting regulations are likely to be modified when the Formula 1 Commission meets at the start of next month, according to Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali.

Speaking at a media event in Italy, Domenicali said the recently announced revision to the F1 points system – replacing the 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 scoring system with a 25-20-15-10-8-6-5-3-2-1 distribution to award points down to 10th place – was unlikely to be the last word on the subject.

The change was prompted by the expanded grid of 13 teams that will contest this year’s championship, but does not address criticisms that there is insufficient reward for winning grands prix, since it maintains the same relative differential between the top three finishers.

Awarding points for taking pole position and setting the fastest race lap has also been mooted ahead of the next F1 Commission meeting on 1 February.

Domenicali said the teams were still discussing the points system and other possible tweaks – including regulations on tyre usage and pit stops – but that they must reach a firm decision by the end of this month to give the public time to understand the new rules.

“We will have a very important meeting with the FIA, because we are working to improve the show,” he said.

“We are thinking to modify the points, maybe the number of pit stops, type of tyres and a lot of things are going on.

“It is important that this has to be finalised by the end of this month because then we need to have one and a half months to make sure that all the people around Formula 1 – media, public, spectators – will understand the changes, because this is fundamental for the credibility of our sport.”

Domenicali added that he hoped Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems would return in 2011 and said it was “imperative” that F1 finds a solution to the turbulence problem that has made overtaking a rarity in recent years.

“All the teams have decided not to use KERS in 2010, mainly for cost reasons,” he said.

“But our target is to bring back the KERS system, in which we invested a lot in 2009, in 2011.