Silverstone Testing – Day 1: Massa Just Ahead of Ricciardo and Rosberg

Contested in cool conditions, from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, French time, the first day of testing at Silverstone was dominated by Felipe Massa, just 6 thousandths ahead of Daniel Ricciardo.

The time of 1:35.242 set by the Paulista on medium tires in the morning was not beaten by the Australian, who tried everything at the end of the session, only to ultimately fall short by a breath. Williams also finished their program very early, deliberately ending Massa’s day after 42 laps, around 4:30 PM. The Brazilian was thus able to calmly prepare for the World Cup semi-final between Brazil and Germany.

Ricciardo, for his part, took four hours to set an initial time. However, he managed to complete 72 laps of the British circuit. Nico Rosberg, in third, completed 90 laps, and Adrian Sutil—who covered the distance of a race—finished fourth.

The two Germans precede Jules Bianchi: the Frenchman, on his Marussia, was conducting tests for Pirelli (with tire compounds unknown to the team and fixed settings) and managed to cross the start/finish line 108 times; he’s the most diligent man of the day. He nonetheless finished his day due to a small fire that caused a red flag. This should not prevent Max Chilton from lining up tomorrow. Bianchi, for his part, will race tomorrow for the Scuderia Ferrari.

In sixth position, the Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne – who was undertaking his second outing of the season at the wheel of the McLaren MP4-29 – was a tenth ahead of Sergio Pérez’s Force India.

On his side, Jean-Eric Vergne, 8th, was responsible for most of the red flags of the day (three), which, among other things, explains his low number of laps (28). Conversely, and for once, Pastor Maldonado was able to complete 97 laps driving the Lotus E22, which will feature the famous 18-inch rims provided by Pirelli for these tests tomorrow.

Pedro de la Rosa, for Ferrari, completed 49 laps, finishing almost a second behind the Venezuelan while Will Stevens, making his debut at the wheel of the Caterham, was far behind. The main focus, however, is not on the lap times, as usual during private testing.

You can find the schedule for Wednesday’s test day.