Felipe Massa tops opening day of second Barcelona F1 test - MotorSportsTalk

Williams bounced back from a troublesome first week of Formula 1 pre-season running in Barcelona to top the opening day of the second test on Tuesday through Felipe Massa.

Williams was forced to end running early on two days last week and skipped Thursday altogether due to damage sustained in crashes involving 18-year-old rookie Lance Stroll.

Massa was handed the opening day of the second test in a bid to maximize track-time, and the Brazilian duly delivered by racking up over 160 laps, one of which proved to be the fastest of the day.

A best time of 1:19.726 saw Massa flirt with the fastest overall time in testing, set last week by Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, while Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo finished second, two-tenths of a second behind.

Ricciardo’s lap was a first sign of raw one-lap pace from Red Bull, which opted to spend all of last week focusing on reliability.

Sebastian Vettel continued Ferrari’s impressive start to testing by finishing third, as well as completing more laps than any other driver. The German was just six-thousandths of a second shy of Ricciardo’s time.

Mercedes split its running between Lewis Hamilton and Bottas once again on Tuesday, taking the morning and afternoon sessions respectively. Hamilton was unhappy with his morning running, with the team ending its program early so it could make changes to the car. The Briton ended up fourth-fastest ahead of Bottas in P5.

Esteban Ocon was sixth for Force India ahead of Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg, the latter splitting running with teammate Jolyon Palmer. Kevin Magnussen was eighth in the Haas VF-17, while Toro Rosso bounced back after a tough first week with Daniil Kvyat winding up P9.

McLaren’s nightmare start to pre-season testing continued as Stoffel Vandoorne’s running was once again interrupted by an engine issue, forcing Honda into changing the power unit on his car over lunch. The Belgian completed just half the mileage of the pace-setters and ended the day 10th.

Sauber split its running between Pascal Wehrlein and Marcus Ericsson, the former making his first appearance in the C36 car after missing the opening test through injury. They finished 11th and 12th ahead of Renault’s Palmer, who propped up the timesheets.

DAY ONE CLASSIFICATION: 1⃣1⃣1⃣9⃣ laps completed 😮 #F1Testing #F1 pic.twitter.com/VGhlf209Xu

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 7, 2017

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An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”