Formula One news

Bahrain day 2: Massa stays top as Alonso watches on

Felipe Massa once again put Ferrari at the top of the timesheets in official Formula One testing at the Bahrain International Circuit. The new Ferrari F2007 logged a time of 1m 30.640s early in the day's running on the way to logging another 100 laps around the 5.14km home of the Bahrain Grand Prix, despite an apparent misfire which led to one session-stopping breakdown on track. 

It was another stop-start day of running for the 16 cars as the teams continue to hone their race setups and iron out any faults in the systems on their brand new cars. 

Vitantonio Liuzzi posted Scuderia Toro Rosso's most impressive performance in the morning session, but was forced to sit the afternoon out after technical problems beset his Ferrari-engined STR2. 

Conversely Heikki Kovalainen was on the sidelines in the morning while the extensive damage to his Renault was put right following yesterday's turn 7 crash, but made up for lost time by pounding round for 30 laps in the afternoon session to log the sixth fastest time of the day. 

Sitting out the day's action entirely was reigning world champion Fernando Alonso, who has dropped his original plan to return to Europe today after it became clear that Ferrari is running its definitive setup for the Australian Grand Prix. As a result the Spaniard had a full day at the Bahrain International Circuit, going out on the perimeter road to watch the progress of his rivals as well as his McLaren Mercedes team mates Lewis Hamilton and Pedro de la Rosa and taking the opportunity for a good look at Massa's stricken Ferrari. 

Ralf Schumacher eased himself back into action for Toyota after injuring his back while bouncing over the kerbs in yesterday's test, putting in a dozen laps in the morning session before rattling off a further 73 laps in the afternoon. Team mate Jarno Trulli suffered a spin that triggered mechanical faults in the sister car.

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