It was a day of hiccups for the Ferrari as the eighth day of F1 testing, the fifth day at the Circuito Permanente de Velocidad in Jerez de la Frontera, the third test of the pre-season and the second consecutive at this track, got underway yesterday. Felipe Massa debuted chassis number 282 in Jerez yesterday. The Scuderia Ferrari tradition of consecutive numbering of its chassis beyond a model year started in 1970 with the 312 B (above) and this chassis, denoted number 1, was used in seven grands prix with one of them taking place in 1971..

It was a day of hiccups for the Scuderia Ferrari as the eighth day of testing for the 2010 F1 World Championship, the fifth day at the "Circuito Permanente de Velocidad" in Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, the third test of the pre-season and the second consecutive at this track, got underway yesterday.

The weather conditions were extremely variable during the eight hours of testing with torrential downpours and rays of sunlight, all accompanied by fierce gusts of wind. The track dried off pretty quickly after the showers, but there weren’t perfect conditions at all throughout the day. Furthermore there were several interruptions due to cars stopped on the track, one due to the F10 stopped on the tarmac caused by a trivial problem occurring quite often during the tests.

The team worked hard on the car, carrying out some modifications and enabling the technicians to check the data of different set ups, which sometimes took longer than expected. This is why in the end Felipe Massa, in the cockpit for the start of the test, drove 72 laps, much less than Ferrari had been running last week.

The Brazilian drove his fastest lap in a time of 1.23.204, which was the third fastest time on the time sheets of the opening day behind Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull-Renault) and Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes).

"This wasn’t the best day of testing,” Massa said. "The track conditions changed all the time and then we might have lost the best moment in the early afternoon. We had to adapt to the situation, trying to make the best of it. We hope that the situation will improve tomorrow. Although the forecast is not really encouraging.”

Tuesday lap times from Jerez:

1. Vettel 1.22.593 (99 laps)
2. Hamilton 1.23.017 (72)
3. Massa 1.23.204 (72)
4. Buemi 1.23.322 (79)
5. De La Rosa 1.23.367 (76)
6. Schumacher 1.23.803 (111)
7. Sutil 1.24.272 (28)
8. Di Resta 1.25.088 (74)
9. Petrov 1.26.237 (55)
10. Barrichello 1.27.320 (109)
11. Fauzy 1.31.848 (76)
12. Glock 1.32.417 (10)

Felipe Massa in fact went out on track yesterday morning for the first time with new chassis number 282, the second F10 to have been built. Usually Formula 1 teams identify the chassis with a progressive number for each single-seater model’s chassis on the track during the season, starting with a new series the following year. Scuderia Ferrari applied this method for the first 20 years of its participation in the F1 Championship, but decided to change approach, identifying the chassis with progressive numbers without interrupting the series at the end of the model’s lifespan.

This tradition started in 1970 with the 312 B. This chassis number 1 was used in seven races - one of them in 1971, always with Jacky Ickx behind the wheel, except on one occasion (Germany 1970), when the Swiss driver Clay Regazzoni drove the car. The outcome was one victory at the Austrian GP (Österreichring on 18 August) and a third place in the Netherlands in Zandvoort on 21 June in the same year. In both grands prix the car gained a place on the podium Ickx also drove the fastest race lap, while between these two races the car started from the pole position at the French GP in Clermont-Ferrand on 4 July, also with the Belgian driver behind the wheel.