Massa thrives in Barcelona testing, McLaren frustrated again

felipemassa - cropped

Williams continued their impressive form in testing ahead of the new Formula One season as Felipe Massa topped the timesheets in Barcelona.

The Brazilian trailed Lewis Hamilton after the morning session at the Circuit de Catalunya, but with a set of soft tyres on his car the 33-year-old went fastest by almost a second.

Massa put together 103 laps on the first day of the final pre-season test on Thursday, with his progress throughout the day giving Williams plenty to be positive about ahead of the Australian Grand Prix next month.

His fastest lap of one minute 23.500seconds was quicker than any other driver across any of the Barcelona testing days this year, with Sauber's Magnus Ericsson 0.776secs back in second.

Ericsson jumped ahead of defending champion Hamilton in the afternoon, the Briton's Mercedes suffering problems with his energy recovery system to restrict the number of laps he was able to complete.

Hamilton remained third fastest despite only completing 48 laps as only the top three drivers were able to go under 85 seconds.

Daniil Kvyat led the charge of the other five drivers in the Red Bull, with Lotus' Romain Grosjean 0.230secs further back, and Kimi Raikkonen sixth in his Ferrari.

A new front nose for Toro Rosso failed to have the impact the Italian constructors would have hoped for as Carlos Sainz could only manage the seventh fastest time.

Only Jenson Button was below the Spaniard on another frustrating day for McLaren. After problems throughout testing and Fernando Alonso's crash on Sunday, the British constructor spent most of the day in the garage due to a hydraulic leak. 

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