This afternoon marked the end of testing for Scuderia Ferrari at the Catalunya Circuit, near Barcelona.

Felipe Massa was again on track today, working on a programme of set-up adjustment checks on the Ferrari F60. The Brazilian driver covered a total of 92 laps, the quickest in a time of 1.20.677, sixth fastest on the day.

"I think that we've done some pretty good work in this session," Massa began. "Obviously there were some minor problems on the second and third day, but yesterday I drove the distance of one and a half races all in one go without getting out of the car and also today I drove many miles. Over these 20 days of tests we were able to improve our car a lot in every respect."

"Today we're where we thought we would be before the start at Melbourne," Massa continued. "As far as the performance is concerned I'm really satisfied with our competitiveness compared to all the others, except obviously Brawn GP, who were unreachable for all of us."

"Right now we're not the fastest car on the track, what I might have said before the tests here at Barcelona: we'll see how it works out in Australia.
What I think about McLaren and Brawn GP? I can't reply to that, because I don't know the details. I can just look at the lap times and what we see from the outside. As far as the aerodynamic solutions are concerned I can only say that I'm not the one to comment on that. First of all I'm not an engineer, but a driver and then there's a Federation, which has the task to see if everything is alright or not."

While some teams move on to Jerez this weekend, the Scuderia's winter testing thus came to an end today: the next time it will appear on track will be at the Australian Grand Prix, the inaugural round of the 2009 World Championship, which takes place at Melbourne's Albert Park circuit, from 27th to 29th March.

E.A. © CAPSIS International

 

Wow, pretty healthy endorsement of Brawn from the Ferrari crowd.

 

wow can't wait for this season to start.....it'll be a good one

 

If the Brawn GP cars are reliable and competitive all season, we may be in for a big surprise at the end of the season!

This late deal has everybody on their toes.

 

+1 This season should be awesome if Brawn can stay competitive. So excited!

 

I'm so pumped for this upcoming season! Brawn GP could turn out to be the ultimate underdog team!

I'm almost tempted to put one of the Brawn GP drivers on my roster for Fantasy F1...

 

I'll say it. I have.

Brawn should qualify well in Australia and as long as they make it through the turn 1 / turn 2 melee, should hang well with the front of the crowd. I'll give them a shot.

 

pre-season testing isn't really very indicative of race pace because of the vast amount of variables in play for every team testing but it does seem as if the 09 honda chassis is coupling quite well with the mercedes power unit. i think everyone has been surprised and impressed with brawngp's pace so far but it remains to be seen if they can translate that into a race distance and, more importantly, over the course of a season (while every team continues improving, we don't know if brawn has the financial clout to keep up). irrespective of all these arguments it would be really nice to see jense and rubens in a proper car because they are both extremely talented drivers who deserve a chance to shine. im glad they decided to keep rubens on and he showed (winning massa's annual kart race) that he still has some pace and jense has had so much bad luck the last couple years that he can only go up from here.

 

Amazing

 

I'm taking a chance on Jensen Button on my fantasy F1 team. I have a hunch he'll prove to be slightly more consistent than Rubens and I'd love to see him give a strong performance at Melbourne. Just two more weeks!