The penultimate day of F1 testing before the Bahrain Grand Prix was hit by rain, which slowed down the programmes of Scuderia Ferrari and the other ten teams present yesterday at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona.

The penultimate day of F1 testing before the Bahrain Grand Prix was hit by rain, which slowed down the programmes of Scuderia Ferrari and the other ten teams present yesterday at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona.

Just after 10:20am a consistent drizzle started to wet the track and made the work on the track in the morning quite insignificant. In the afternoon some more rain fell, but it wasn’t enough to fit the car with the wets.

Just like it had played out at the previous test in Jerez, Felipe Massa, whose work programme was slightly changed, wasn’t very lucky. Despite a long break from 12:30pm to 2:30pm, when the team carried out work on the car in order to best exploit the available time between yesterday afternoon and today, the Brazilian was still one of the fastest drivers on the track, and turned in 115 laps. In particular Massa simulated another race, successfully completed by the end of the day. His fastest lap, with a time of 1.22.344, was driven in the simulation’s last stint.

"We managed to drive many miles, which is always positive,” said Massa. "We finished another race simulation without any problems, which helped us to better understand the tyre behaviour with different fuel loads and under different track conditions. I’m satisfied with today. We’re working in the right direction for the start of the Championship."

After Alonso had been in the cockpit during the previous two days, yesterday Massa was able to try out the new aerodynamic solutions the F10 is using during this test: "I had a very positive impression: you can feel more grip and more downforce. It’s encouraging, because it means that we made another step ahead compared to Jerez."

Today is the last day of testing and Massa hopes that there won’t be any rain: “Let’s hope the weather improves: it would be important to finish the tests on a dry track to collect some more important data regarding the car under various conditions, also with less fuel on board."

Saturday testing times from Barcelona:

1. Rosberg 1.20.686 (128 laps)
2. Buemi 1.21.413 (106)
3. Button 1.21.450 (105)
4. Barrichello 1.21.975 (101)
5. Massa 1.22.344 (115)
6. Petrov 1.22.523 (68)
7. Sutil 1.22.606 (61)
8. Vettel 1.23.124 (51)
9. Trulli 1.25.059 (102)
10. Kobayashi 1.26.216 (105)
11. Glock 1.26.305 (31)

Scuderia Ferrari Testing Details for 27/02/2010: Circuit: Catalunya Circuit, Montmelò, Spain, length: 4.655 km; Driver: Felipe Massa; Car: Ferrari F10; Weather: air temperature 8/15 °C, track temperature 10/16 °C. Overcast, with rain at times.