Massa will debut the new Ferrari

It will be Felipe Massa who will make his track debut with the Ferrari single-seater that will contest this year's Formula 1 World Championship. The Brazilian driver will begin development work on the new car on February 5th at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit, site of the first of three test sessions of four days each that will precede the start of the Championship. Felipe will remain on track until number 7 and then give up the seat to Pedro De la Rosa, who will thus make his debut on a Red.

In the meantime and throughout the first part of February, Fernando Alonso will intensify the physical preparation phase in view of the first part of the season which, as always, will be very expensive, either due to the distance between the various Grand Prix venues or due to the diversity of climatic conditions that will be encountered from Melbourne to Sakhir, passing through Sepang and Shanghai. Fernando will drive his fourth Formula 1 Ferrari for the first time on February 19 at the Circuit de Catalunya at Montmelò. The Spaniard will remain on track for three days and then give way to his teammate Massa. The last test session, still scheduled at Montmelò from 28 February to 3 March, will see Felipe and Fernando alternate on the track: Thursday and Saturday the Brazilian, Friday and Sunday the Spaniard. Therefore, the division of test days among the Ferrari drivers will be as follows: Massa seven days, Alonso five and De la Rosa one.

The latter is in Maranello today to fine-tune the cockpit of the new single-seater. Pedro had a series of meetings with the Scuderia's technicians to define the work program on the simulator, which will constitute his major commitment in his role as test driver. In light of this, the track day on 8 February will be very important because it will allow both the team and the driver to work specifically on the correlation between the virtual and the real. Meanwhile, the assembly work on the new single-seater continues: the first start-up was carried out yesterday.