Ferrari struggles, but still tops the time sheets

First and second in the morning, first and fourth in the afternoon and a total of 99 laps for the two F2007; that is the numerical summing up of the first day of practice for Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix for Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa.

Kimi Raikkonen "It is too early to say where everyone stands, but the performance levels of the top teams seems to be very close. Today, it was difficult to find the right balance of the car, partly because at this track, the wind makes the car difficult to drive. Towards the end of the second session, we found some good settings and now we must keep on that track to find a bit more speed to keep ahead of the rest. But all in all we can be satisfied with the work we have done today."

Felipe Massa "I am pretty happy with the handling of the car, which has allowed me to be very consistent in terms of performance over long runs. We have a good point from which to work over the rest of the weekend. In particular, we have to work on improving our performance on the first lap on new tyres. It all looks very close, but we have everything we need to do well in qualifying and in the race."

Luca Baldisserri "Today, we struggled a bit more than on the two previous Grand Prix Fridays, in terms of finding a good balance on our cars. We tried various settings and then, in the second part of the second session, we came up with a good compromise. Performance and consistency over a long run are reasonably satisfactory on both the Bridgestone tyre types that we have at this track. It is very close as can be seen from the times. So it does not need much to tip the balance one way or another and so all elements of the package have to be working at their best if we want to aspire to the best result."