The new world champion Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari's Felipe Massa had been encouraged by their 1st drives on Formula 1's new Pirelli tyres.

The italian business is replacing Japan's Bridgestone as F1's sole tyre supplier next season and tested the new rubber in Abu Dhabi on Friday.

Red Bull's Vettel, who was second fastest behind Massa, said: "The tyres behaved well, far better than expected."

Ferrari's Massa added: "I felt at ease proper from the begin."

All of the teams are in Abu Dhabi, scene of 2010's final grand prix on Sunday, for two days of running with the tyres.

The focus of the test is for teams to comprehend how the tyres work and what that can mean for their 2011 cars.

Sebastian Vettel checks out the new Pirelli tyres inside the Red Bull garage in Abu Dhabi
Pirelli are obviously inside the middle of their development and what we employed right now Isn't what we will race with, but it was a great begin

Massa, 29, was 0.330 seconds quicker than Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, the new world champion.

Massa's fastest lap of 1 minute 40.170 seconds was 0.032secs quicker than his qualifying time, which was excellent sufficient for sixth on the grid last weekend.

Vettel's very best time was a 1:40.500 - 1.106secs slower than his pole position lap.

The German was 0.7secs quicker than McLaren test driver Gary Paffett, who is standing in for race drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button on both days of the test.

Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi was fourth, ahead of Renault's Robert Kubica, whose running was curtailed by reliability issues.

Massa echoed the views of most of the drivers at the test, when he said his 1st impression of the new tyres was "positive".

The Brazilian added: "There had been no unpleasant surprises.

"We tried two distinct sorts and acquired a great deal of data which will likely be helpful for the Italian business to develop the tyres still further for the begin of the 2011 season.

"On the hards, there had been some difficulties over a lengthy run although the softs worked well both on the extremely 1st lap and also after they had completed a larger number of laps."

Vettel, who has spent most of the week since winning his title performing Pr and media work, said: "It was all about the tyres right now, as this was the 1st chance we have had to try them out and work with them to develop the car's set-up for next year.

"I believe the tyres behaved well, far better than expected given the brief quantity of time Pirelli have had and they've completed a great job.
Ferrari's Felipe Massa and his race engineer Rob Smedley at the Pirelli tyre test at Abu Dhabi on Friday

"Pirelli are obviously inside the middle of their development and what we employed right now Isn't what we will race with, but it was a great begin.

"It was fantastic to be back inside the automobile after an incredible week - I went to Salzburg on Monday morning for a Tv show and press conference and then to the Uk to say thanks to the team in Milton Keynes - that was fairly emotional.

"It's nice for me as well as the team to have the ability to take pleasure in our success, but 2011 started right now and i was focusing on the tyres and acquiring to know them - I believe we have learned fairly a great deal."

Kobayashi added: "The tyres from Pirelli are well made. We tested the best way to work with these new tyres and how we want to further develop our automobile for them, learning in which way they're distinct to what we had been employed to running.

"The tyres had been fairly consistent. Only inside the morning I struggled with tyre wear, but after we made some set-up changes this wasn't an problem any longer. It was a extremely fascinating test for us."

Pirelli has given every of the teams eight sets of tyres for the test divided between two distinct compounds, soft and medium.

Renault chief engineer Alan Permane said: "Robert was reasonably happy with the automobile balance, even though we made a couple of changes throughout the day to enhance it.

"Our initial impression of the tyres has been positive: they had been working well with excellent grip and no warm-up problems."

Pirelli is planning to use data supplied by drivers and engineers to modify the tyres just before official F1 pre-season testing starts in February next year.

There will likely be four tests just before the 2011 season starts in Bahrain on 13 March.

The 1st 3 tests are in Spain, on 1-3 February at the Ricardo Tormo circuit near Valencia, 10-13 February at Jerez and 18-21 February at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya.

The final test will likely be in Bahrain a week just before the 1st race, from 3-6 March.

Pirelli was last involved in F1 in 1991, but has been preparing for its return by running a 2009 Toyota chassis in Europe this summer, with Nick Heidfeld, Romain Grosjean and Pedro de la Rosa at the wheel.

For 36 of the 53 laps at Monza on Sunday a silver car led the reds of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, but when McLaren’s Jenson Button ducked in to the pits then it was Ferrari’s Alonso who led from Massa until eventually he stopped on Lap 37. When he resumed, Alonso just created it to the primary chicane onward of Button, and thereafter there was in no way any question about who would win.

Even though the McLaren was forward the gap between Button and Alonso fluctuated involving 0.5s and 1.6s, but once the Spaniard acquired in entrance he opened it to as very much as 4.0s ahead of finishing 2.9s forward. Massa was yet another 1.2s adrift, on a working day when the Scuderia moved firmly again into contention for the drivers’ world championship.

It was a disastrous working day for Lewis Hamilton in the other McLaren, who jumped to fourth as Mark Webber’s Pink Bull again began slowly, but at the second chicane Massa’s left rear wheel came into contact with Hamilton’s front appropriate, and by the initial Lesmo the McLaren driver was in the gravel, his day done.

It also seemed like becoming a poor working day for Sebastian Vettel as a brake dilemma momentarily dropped him behind Pink Bull workforce mate Webber, from fifth to sixth. But a really clever bit of method from the Milton Keynes workforce saw them maintain their man out till the 52nd lap prior to he finally made his mandatory tyre discontinue.

By then his long run had taken him forward of fast-starting Nico Rosberg who’d held fourth for most with the race for Mercedes GP. Vettel got out of the pits onward in the silver arrow, which had Webber on its tail following the Australian experienced doggedly fought by Williams’ Nico Hulkenberg. The young German manufactured a mistake on the 49th lap, blocked Webber adequate to provoke an angry gesture from the latter, then Mark made a move stick a lap later.

Webber now leads the planet championship once more with 187 points to Hamilton’s 182, but Alonso’s fantastic drive vaults him to third on 166, just onward of Button on 165 and Vettel on 163. Red Bull have 350 factors to McLaren’s 347 and Ferrari’s 290.

It was a tense as opposed to thrilling race, but the scrap for the lower points locations was continually entertaining. Hulkenberg chased fifth-placed Robert Kubica for a lot of the race and jumped the Renault from the pit stops, but the Williams driver dropped back again to seventh right after Webber’s productive attack. Kubica took eighth, with Mercedes GP’s Michael Schumacher a distant ninth in advance of Rubens Barrichello within the second Williams.

Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi just headed Force India’s Tonio Liuzzi over the line for 11th, with Renault’s Vitaly Petrov benefiting from a very late pit cease to take 13th ahead of BMW Sauber’s Pedro de la Rosa. Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersauri was 15th following a drive-through penalty for missing a chicane, while Force India’s Adrian Sutil fought up to 16th following get in touch with on the opening lap sent him into the pits.

Timo Glock won the new teams’ race for Virgin soon after Jarno Trulli’s Lotus blew up late inside the race, from Heikki Kovalainen in the other T127 and Sakon Yamamoto’s HRT, right after Lucas di Grassi had to make a pit stop on lap 52.

Throughout Yamamoto’s pit stop a crew member was hurt right after the lollipop was lifted too early. He was taken to hospital for checks and the crew were subsequently fined US$20,000 for an unsafe release.

Besides Hamilton and Trulli, HRT’s Bruno Senna stopped with mechanical woes and Kamui Kobayashi did not truly leave the pit lane following problems with his BMW Sauber just before he bought for the grid.

Monza 2010

 BBC Report

ITV F1

Hamilton won the Belgian Grand prix after an incident-packed race at Spa-Francorchamps.

Hamilton took control of the race with a wonderful start from the outside of the front row, while pole-sitter Mark Webber bogged down as his Red Bull’s anti-stall function kicked in and tumbled to 7th place.

Button and Ferrari's Alonso crashed out, and Sebastian vettel did not score a point.

"I'm ecstatic, it was a great weekend," said Hamilton, whose driving was praised by his team principal Martin Whitmarsh. "A race like that can be a lottery, so I'm so happy and grateful to come out on top."

Belgian Grand Prix result (44 laps)

1 HAMILTON McLaren 1h29m04.3s

2 WEBBER Red Bull +1.6s

3 KUBICA Renault +3.5s

4 MASSA Ferrari +8.3s

5 SUTIL Force India +9.1s

6 ROSBERG Mercedes +12.4s

7 SCHUMACHER Mercedes +15.5s

8 KOBAYASHI Sauber +16.7s

9 PETROV Renault +23.9s

10 LIUZZI Force India +34.8s

11 DE LA ROSA Sauber +36.0s

12 BUEMI Toro Rosso +39.9s

13 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso +49.5s

14 HULKENBERG Williams +1 lap

15 VETTEL Red Bull +1 lap

16 KOVALAINEN Lotus +1 lap

17 DI GRASSI Virgin +1 lap

18 GLOCK Virgin +1 lap

19 TRULLI Lotus +1 lap

20 YAMAMOTO HRT +2 laps

R ALONSO Ferrari +7 laps

R BUTTON McLaren +29 laps

R SENNA HRT +39 laps

R BARRICHELLO Williams +44 laps

Related:

Mark webber maintained his growing championship momentum as he seized pole position for the Belgian GP in a typically rain-affected Spa qualifying session.

This means Red Bull have taken 13 pole positions in the 14 races this season.

But Lewis hamilton produced an excellent performance to take second, ahead of Roblert Kubica.

German driver Vettel could not do better on his final lap and so finished fourth in the second Red Bull, while world champion Button did find time on his final run to snatch fifth position.

Belgian GP starting grid

1 WEBBER Red Bull

2 HAMILTON McLaren

3 KUBICA Renault

4 VETTEL Red Bull

5 BUTTON McLaren

6 MASSA Ferrari

7 BARRICHELLO Williams

8 SUTIL Force India

9 HULKENBERG Williams

10 ALONSO Ferrari

11 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso

12 LIUZZI Force India

13 BUEMI Toro Rosso

14 KOVALAINEN Lotus

15 GLOCK Virgin

16 ROSBERG Mercedes

17 TRULLI Lotus

18 KOBAYASHI Sauber

19 SENNA HRT

20 YAMAMOTO HRT

21 SCHUMACHER Mercedes

22 DE LA ROSA Sauber

23 DI GRASSI Virgin

24 PETROV Renault

Ferrari's Alonso posted the fastest lap times in each one of Friday's 2 practice sessions for the Belgian GP.

The Spanish driver signalled his intention with a lap of 2 minutes, 0.797 seconds in a rain-affected morning run.

Then he took advantage of a chaotic finish to a largely dry afternoon stint to stop the clock at 1:49.032, 0.125 seconds ahead of Andrian Sutil

Mclaren's Lewis Hamilton was third but Red Bull's driver Mark Webber was 2.6secs off the pace at Spa.

Kubica, trying the team's new F-duct aerodynamic system, came through fourth fastest and Fernando Alonso's teammate Massa was 6th.

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, 3rd in the drivers' standings, was 0.657secs behind and current F1 champion Button of McLaren was a further 0.066secs back.

Alonso came out on top but his opponents may point to the open track on which he was able to post his top time following a red flag towards the end of second practice.

Williams driver Rubens Barrichello, who is set to become the first F1 driver to start 300 races this weekend, was almost 1.1secs off the pace.

Mercedes' 7 time F1 champion Michael Schumacher goes into the race with a 10-place grid penalty after nearly running Barrichello into a pit wall at the Hungarian GP.