Schumacher sets Jerez ablaze

Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher fires statement of intent clocking new car's fastest time while topping day two of the Jerez testing

Michael Schumacher fired a statement of intent on the second day of the pre-season Formula One test in Jerez, posting the fastest time at the wheel of the new Mercedes.


Germany's Michael Schumacher drives his Mercedes during Day Two of
testing at the Circuito de Jerez, Spain yesterday. PIC/Getty Images

The veteran German, who struggled at times on his return to the sport last season following a spell in retirement, set a best mark of one minute 20.352 seconds to finish less than a tenth of a second quicker than Felipe Massa's Ferrari."It clearly was a productive day, and obviously I am happy about that," Schumacher said. "We were focussing on long runs and being able to produce such a lot of mileage is positive in terms of reliability. "It also gives us good data for the test days to come and for the developments we are working on.

Moving forward
"We are moving forward as we should during the testing period but at the same time, we are aware we have to keep pushing."The result continued Ferrari's strong start to the four-day test session, Massa having topped the timesheets yesterday.McLaren were still feeling their way with the new MP4-26. Jenson Button took charge of the driving duties from Lewis Hamilton today, the Briton's times slowly coming down over a series of short runs as he finished third in 1min 21.009secs.

Toro Rosso again looked in decent shape, finishing in fourth with Jaime Alguersuari at the wheel. It was not all plain sailing for the Spaniard, however, as he span at turn nine to trigger a red flag. Red Bull again concentrated on long runs in the RB7 rather than ultimate lap time as Mark Webber finished fifth in 1:21.613.

Force India sixth
The Force India VJM04 was sixth in the hands of Adrian Sutil, while Sauber rookie Sergio Perez, second yesterday, had to be content with seventh place today.