Felipe Massa set the fastest time on the first day of testing at Jerez, the Ferrari driver completing 101 laps on his way to posting a best time 0.774s ahead of his nearest rival, Sergio Perez.

At the wheel of the F150th Italia (!), the Brazilian's programme focussed on finding the best set-up for the car, increasing understanding of the Pirelli tyres' behaviour, aerodynamic testing and starts.

Despite endless red flags which were especially prevalent this afternoon, the Brazilian was able to complete the planned programme, without any technical problems.

"I am pleased with today," said the Brazilian, who continues here tomorrow. "I was able to run continuously, without losing any valuable time. All those kilometres helped me get to know the car better and especially the tyres, an area where we were able to try different things to those we did in Valencia.

"The fastest time?" he continued. "It doesn't mean anything, because we don't know what trim the other drivers were running."

Second quickest was Mexican rookie Sergio Perez in the Sauber, the youngster covering 94 laps on his way to posting a best time of 1:21.483.

"I'm very happy with how the day went," he said. "We covered a good mileage and again I learnt a lot. I'm getting more and more confident with all the procedures with the team and the car. I'm looking forward to another busy day tomorrow."

"Today was a productive day for us," added technical director, James Key. "In the morning we started off with some base line runs. Before we concentrated on set-up and worked on the braking system we also planned to run out of fuel, which was why the car stopped out on the track.

"In the afternoon we carried out back to back comparisons to learn more about the mechanical set up of the car," he continued. "Although there were several red flags in the afternoon, we have found some good directions for further work. We only used the medium and hard tyre compounds today. In the afternoon we used no more than three sets of the harder ones, and they certainly degrade, but not so badly that we could not learn anything from them. Sergio concluded the day with practice starts and will continue to drive tomorrow."

Mark Webber was back in action for Red Bull, the Australian, like Perez, completing 94 laps, as he team focussed mainly on tyres, evaluating a broader range of compounds compared with those used in Valencia.

"It was pretty good today," said the Australian. "There were a few red flags, but we did almost 100 laps and the car ran well. On the performance side I think we're going okay; it's very early and you don't know who's doing what, but we're focusing on ourselves and seem to be going in the right direction."

Toro Rosso had two drivers on duty, Australian hot-shot Daniel Ricciardo in the morning and Jaime Alguersuari in the afternoon. The team has put in a lot of work at its Faenza factory, making changes to the STR 6 based on data acquired in Valencia and today's performance suggests that those changes have delivered signs of progress.

For Ricciardo, today was something of a milestone for it was his first time in a Toro Rosso car. The Australian, who will drive for the team in Free Practice 1 at most Grands Prix this year, completed 31 laps ion his way to posting the fourth best time of the day.