Ferrari rebounded from a difficult start to its Barcelona test with a dominant performance at the Circuit de Catalunya on Tuesday.
The Maranello squad finished squarely at the top of the timesheets, Felipe Massa impressively outpacing team-mate Kimi Raikkonen by more than half a second.
Moreover, there was no repeat of the electrical problems that thwarted the team on Monday; Massa completed 108 laps and Raikkonen a mammoth 154 – more than two grand prix distances.
Renault showed a better turn of speed than in recent tests as Heikki Kovalainen set the third fastest time and Giancarlo Fisichella wound up fifth.
“I managed to complete my programme today and we achieved the team’s objectives for the day,” reported Kovalainen, who worked on set-up development and evaluation of aerodynamic components ahead of the forthcoming Bahrain tests.
“We did lots of laps, collected plenty of data, and the overall result looks positive.”
Fisichella added: “In terms of performance, the times are clearly very close but we seem competitive.
“It was a good day for us, and I hope we can achieve the same tomorrow.”
Sandwiching the Renaults were McLaren duo Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, the British rookie taking over the second MP4-22 from Monday pace-setter Pedro de la Rosa.
Hamilton carried out pit stop practice and race simulation work in the afternoon, but his schedule was interrupted by a series of red flags.
BMW Sauber made less of an impression than of late but Robert Kubica still managed the seventh best time, despite an engine problem that stranded him on track in the afternoon.
Team-mate Nick Heidfeld was 12th fastest after focusing on set-up and aerodynamic work, while Kubica concentrated on dampers and mechanical set-up.
Jarno Trulli was eighth quickest in the Toyota TF107 ahead of Williams team-mates Nico Rosberg and Alex Wurz, who set virtually identical times, a little over one second adrift of Raikkonen’s benchmark.
“Alex did the majority of testing today and continued with the set-up work started yesterday as well as working on some cooling characterisation,” said team test manager Mike Condliffe.
“The work we did was conclusive, which is always helpful in finding the right direction to make adjustments.”
Testing times from Barcelona (February 13)
1. MASSA Ferrari 1m21.181s
2. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m21.719s
3. KOVALAINEN Renault 1m21.819s
4. ALONSO McLaren 1m21.901s
5. FISICHELLA Renault 1m21.997s
6. HAMILTON McLaren 1m22.078s
7. KUBICA BMW 1m22.100s
8. TRULLI Toyota 1m22.227s
9. ROSBERG Williams 1m22.249s
10. WURZ Williams 1m22.288s
11. MONTAGNY Toyota 1m22.476s
12. HEIDFELD BMW 1m22.618s
13. BARRICHELLO Honda 1m22.669s
14. BUTTON Honda 1m22.816s
15. WEBBER Red Bull 1m22.916s
16. COULTHARD Red Bull 1m23.322s
17. DAVIDSON Super Aguri 1m23.969s
18. ALBERS Spyker 1m24.425s
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