Alonso cements Ferrari’s dominance at Valencia

The third and final day of the first round of Formula 1 testing attracted more people to Valencia's test circuit than attended the Turkish Grand Prix last season. And the bulk of the 36,400 spectators got what they wanted as Spanish driver Fernando Alonso, driving a Ferrari for the first time, recorded the fastest time of the entire three days.

It was not such a successful day for McLaren driver Jenson Button. He spent the bulk of the morning session adjusting the cockpit of the car so he was comfortable. Eventually he managed to complete 82 laps but he was well down on the times of the Ferrari and his best lap, 1:12.951, was half a second slower than his team mate Lewis Hamilton's best on Tuesday.

But Button insisted that there was no cause for concern. He said: "This morning was tough because we had to change a lot within the car. But I feel good now, I feel comfortable with the height in the car, which is always important for your confidence. This afternoon we were able to do some laps, but then it was about me getting used to all the systems in the car and working with my engineer."

The most impressive performance came, once again, from Ferrari. Felipe Massa posted the best times on the first two days of testing and yesterday it was the turn of the Spanish crowd's favourite, Alonso.

Alonso said it had been an "emotional" day. "The support of the fans was great, and the feeling, atmosphere, passion of everybody within Ferrari is unbelievable," he said.

There was also another run for Michael Schumacher who concentrated on building up his stamina, after three years out of the sport, with a series of longer runs in his Mercedes car.

Ferrari's impressive performance has already earmarked them as the team to watch, but Alonso was quick to point out that it is hard to read too much into the times in testing. And he denied he was now favourite to win the first Grand Prix of the season at Bahrain next month.

One team not at Valencia was Virgin F1 who only unveiled their car on Wednesday. Their model, called the VR-01, is the first 'digital' Formula 1 car. The vehicle has been entirely designed, built and tested on computer without the use of scale models and wind tunnels.

Whether the computers have done their job properly will be ascertained today, when the team give the car a run at Silverstone. ·