Ferrari's decision to adopt a more aggressive design for their F2012 means they have a lot of fine-tuning to do during testing.
After being accused in previous years of not being creative enough, the Maranello squad's technical gurus have decided to be more radical in the design of their new challenger.
Felipe Massa had the honours of putting the car through its paces on day one of the first pre-season test at the Circuito de Jerez in southern Spain on Monday.
The Brazilian finished ninth in the timesheets with a 1:22.815, but Ferrari's chief designer Nikolas Tombazis warns they are still experimenting ahead of the season opener in Australia.
"This car represents a clear break with the one that preceded it and it features concepts that are very different for us and that require much more fine tuning," he told the official Ferrari website.
"That's why today we absolutely did not have an eye on the stopwatch, preferring to concentrate on gathering as much data as possible in order to get as good an understanding as possible of the behaviour of the car.
"We have much to do, but all in all, there are reasons to be pleased with the three hundred kilometres that we put together with Felipe at the wheel.
"We had to experiment with different solutions and that will be the case for the next few days as well: it's obvious that some delivered what was expected while others did not, but that's the purpose of testing, getting to understand how a car behaves and how best to develop it."
He added: "It is obviously too early to say if this year we will be able to win or not, but no one will be able to accuse us of having been timid in the design of this car."
