Trackside at Bahrain

“You need to understand about the tyres, that are a little harder in compound than last year. You need to understand if it’s too hard or not. The way of driving the car is something that is coming naturally. But mileage is important – it is important for all of us.

“Not just for the drivers but for the team as well to get to the first race and be prepared, be ready. Maybe most of the teams they are not 100% ready now. Maybe the team that made more mileage was Mercedes, so maybe they are a little bit in front. But maybe they are still not 100% ready yet.

“We can have many surprises in the first races and we need to be ready to, if you have a surprise, we need to be inside that.”

He added that it wouldn’t be until next week’s final test at Sakhir that the more definitive Melbourne-spec version of the FW36 would begin to take shape.

“For the moment it’s similar to Jerez,” Massa said of the FW36 specification.

“We have some little changes and we should have some new parts more next week. At the end of next week the car should be more or less not far away from how it’s going to be in Australia.”

Bahrain test, Day One timesheet:
1. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1:36.880, 78 laps.
2. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, 1:37.879, 64 laps.
3. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1:37.908, 74 laps.
4. Kevin Magnussen, McLaren, 1:38.295, 81 laps.
5. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 1:40.224, 14 laps.
6. Adrian Sutil, Sauber, 1:40.443, 82 laps.
7. Robin Frijns, Caterham, 1:42.534, 68 laps.
8. Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, 1:44.346, 5 laps.
9. Romain Grosjean, Lotus, 1:44.832, 8 laps.
10. Felipe Massa, Williams, No time, 5 laps.
11. Jules Bianchi, Marussia, No time, 3 laps.

Total pre-season laps by each team:
Mercedes – 383.
McLaren – 326.
Ferrari – 315.
Sauber – 245.
Force India – 224.
Williams – 180.
Caterham – 144.
Toro Rosso – 59.
Red Bull – 35.
Marussia – 33.
Lotus – 8.

Total pre-season laps by each engine manufacturer:
Mercedes – 1,113.
Ferrari – 593.
Renault – 246.

The Entertainment Magazine F1 Online team will be providing live commentary of all three winter tests, with live updates from trackside also on Entertainment Magazine News.