Massa fastest on first day of winter testing

Winter testing finally kicked off today at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona. All the teams, with the exception of Spyker F1, will come in action at the Spanish track this week. Felipe Massa clocked the fastest time today and was followed by Pedro de la Rosa and his Ferrari team-mate Luca Badoer.

The big names missing, when winter testing resumes, are Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen who are still under contract with their old teams. Both drivers are expected to test for their new cars (McLaren and Ferrari) in January. Mark Webber (Red Bull) and Anthony Davidson (Super Aguri) were already on track today with their new teams.

Honda showed up with a black version of the RA106 at Catalunya. It's the only team that has changed the colours of their 2006 livery for winter testing.

Newcomer Lewis Hamilton, who drove his first kilometres as official race driver for the McLaren Team, had a bad start this morning at Barcelona as in the first turn, his car broke down. After fixing the problem, the youngster could get back on track to put down the 6th fastest lap of the day.

Of course all the teams were focussing on the Bridgestone tyres as for the 2006 Michelin teams it's the first time that they are able to test the Japanese rubber.

Testing continues tomorrow as Toyota will join the other teams at Barcelona.