As news emerges that Nigel Stepney has taken up a new but more back seat role at Ferrari, the team has just wrapped up the first two days of official Formula 1 testing in Bahrain with a series of performances which clearly demonstrate that they intend to in the hunt for Grand Prix title honours this year.

Felipe Massa posted the fastest time (1:31.776) after running a total of 86 laps on the opening day of official F1 testing at the Sakhir Grand Prix circuit in Bahrain on Thursday, slightly less than two-tenths of a second quicker than his new 2007 team mate Kimi Raikkonen (1:31.901, 47 laps). The two Ferrari drivers', both at the wheel of the new F2007, got themselves started on an intensive technical programme, which is being built around endurance, set-up and electronics testing.

With temperatures running at 26 degrees Celsius, Scuderia Ferrari were joined on track by eight of the other ten F1 teams, only Williams and Spyker elected to miss the trip. The tests at Sahkir, which is providing very useful hot weather running time ahead of the first three races of the season, Australia, Malaysia and Bahrain, all of which are expected to be run in hot conditions, will last six days and it is also the penultimate test before the new season gets underway. Behind Massa and Raikkonen on Thursday was Jenson Button (Honda) who was third quickest, his team mate Rubens Barrichello next up while F1 rookie Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) was fifth.

Yesterday (Friday), day two of the testing, saw Raikkonen and Massa continuing with the programme initiated on Thursday, which included long run tests, working on finding the best set-up for the car, and electronics testing. The Brazilian ran 71 laps (best time 1.32.584) to go eighth fastest while the Finn ran four more laps than his team mate (best time 1.32.240) and was sixth. Fastest time of the day went to BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld (1:30.469), he was around eight tenths of a second faster than reigning F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso (McLaren).
 

Both Ferrari drivers will be back in action for a third consecutive day at Sakhir this morning. Meanwhile, news has emerged that Ferrari Race Operations Manager Nigel Stepney has taken up a new role with the team, being appointed to take charge of Team Performance Development, which is run as part of the Track Activity Department which is headed up by Luca Baldisserri. This role will see him not being required to attend the races this year.

Stepney had been unhappy with the team's structure since the departure of Ross Brawn, but Ferrari reportedly refused to allow him to leave some twelve months before the end of his contract. "I am looking at spending a year away from Ferrari," he told Autosport some weeks ago. "I'm not currently happy with the situation within the team, I really want to move forward with my career and that's something that's not happening right now. Ideally, I'd like to move into a new environment here at Ferrari - but if an opportunity arose with another team, I would definitely consider it."

This situation was successfully resolved this week and yesterday Autosport quoted a Ferrari team spokesman as saying: "After many years spent working on the Formula One circuits, the last thirteen of those as part of the Ferrari Race Team, Nigel Stepney, with the approval of the company, has chosen to take on a different role that will see him no longer have to attend the races." The vacant position of Race Operations Manager will now be filled by David Lloyd, while Luigi Mazzola has appointed the new Test Team and Test Operations Performance Manager.