There was a positive outcome at the end of the first day of Scuderia Ferrari's planned eight day test session yesterday at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain which will see the Formula 1 team looking to get to grips with its new F60 chassis that has been built to the new rules that come into force this year. The Italian outfit is running in Bahrain together with two other teams: BMW and Toyota.

The first driver on the track on Tuesday morning was Felipe Massa. The Brazilian started the day with setup work on his car, to find the best possible settings for his start to dedicate himself later in the afternoon to some mileage tests with a series of quite long runs (with 15 laps each). At the end Massa had completed 98 laps or around 530 kilometres.

The Ferrarista's fastest lap of the day was in 1.33.615, the second fastest time on Tuesday, just behind Glock's Toyota (1.33.501), but ahead of Kubica's BMW (1.33.702). This showed how evenly the balance of power is distributed on the track amongst the teams in Sakhir.

"I'd say that it was a positive start of this test session. We drove many kilometres, driving with continuity and we could quickly find a very good setup for the car," Massa said at the end of the day. "I'm especially satisfied with the constant lap times in the afternoon, when we drove some pretty long stints. But it's still far too early to understand where we are compared to our competitors. And there's still a lot of work to do to improve the car's behaviour.

The Ferrari F60 on the track yesterday in Bahrain was the same used during the tests at Mugello in January. The main goal of the day was to finally drive it under stable track conditions and similar temperatures the teams will have during the races to test the car's reliability and to get to know the new slicks. The Brazilian's programme consisted of working on finding the best set-up in the morning, while the afternoon was given over to a long run test.

As far as the reliability is concerned today's main problem was an electronic anomaly, which didn't allow the use of the KERS, which remained deactivated over the whole day. Felipe completed a total of 98 laps, the quickest in a time of 1.33.615. The tests will continue into a second consecutive day today (Wednesday) with Felipe behind the wheel. As of Thursday Kimi Raikkonen will continue developing the new car.