Felipe Massa felt positive after taking over the Williams Martini Racing driving duties from Valtteri Bottas for the final two days of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya on Thursday.
The Brazilian veteran completed 119 laps of the Spanish circuit to finish just 0.428s behind pacesetter Kimi Raikkonen despite not being able to match his former Ferrari team-mate’s Ultrasoft Pirelli tyre run due to traffic, with Massa ultimately setting his best time of the day on the Soft tyre.
Massa feels almost ready for the first race of the season later this month in Australia, feeling positive with the FW38 with one day remaining of pre-season testing remaining.
“Today has been a very positive day,” said Massa. “We managed to do our programme without any problems, which included some long runs and also some short runs.
“We tried the soft and even Ultrasoft tyres. Unfortunately I couldn’t do my Ultrasoft lap because we had some traffic, but overall it was a very good day and good to understand the car in a better way.
“I am definitely much happier this week compared to last week. We are almost ready for the first race, which is really when we will have a proper idea of where we are compared to the others, but today was a good day.”
