It was a busy day on Monday in Valencia with many 2010 cars breaking cover for the first time and the drivers stepping into their 2010 title contenders for the first time.

It was the first time the world got to have a look at the 2010 Toro Rosso, Williams and Mercedes W01.

RedBull and Force India were not present, instead opting to further develop their cars, also none of the ‘new’ teams on the grid this year were present.

Michael Schumacher finally stepped into the W01 after much anticipating. He was on the pace and very quickly bettered his team mate, Nico Roseberg’s, times. Schumacher was lapping in the mid 1:13.5′s before breaking into the low 1:13′s and even a very high 1:12.

The nose on the Mercedes W01 is a radical slopped nose similar to last years RedBull’s nose and the new Torro Rosso STR5 is and even more radical looking variation of the design.

Mercedes were the only team on the day run both their drivers on the day.

When asked about how he enjoyed his first day at the wheel of the W01, Schumacher responded: “It was a perfect roll-out for the new car today,” Schumacher commented. “I felt totally comfortable and really had a feeling that everything was very natural. It felt just like at the very beginning of my career in 1991 – when on the first lap, I thought, ‘Wow, that was really fast!’ and then on the second lap I was just extremely excited!

Schumacher “I feel like a young boy again and really enjoyed myself out there. We did a good job today, just making a few control checks, and the most important thing was that the car ran reliably. With Nico and I covering 79 laps between us, it was a superb job by the team.”

The big news of the day however was Filipe Massa’s successful return to Formula1 at the wheel of the new F10. He was on the pace from start to finish on the day. Ferrari’s F10 is already to be proving a far better package then lasts years car. Massa topped the morning sessions in the mid 1:13.5′s but then bettered his morning times to record a 1:12.574 which was not beaten. Massa however did record more laps then any other driver.

It was a dream start to the new season for Ferrari who’s reputation took a battering last year due to a very poor performance during the season and the loss of Filipe due to injury and lack of good reserve driver talent.

When massa stepped out of his car after his dream run, he said he felt “zero fear”  he went on to say he was “happy to be back after such a long time watching the race on television and sometimes on the track,”  he also said he felt very physically fit and could have easily done many more laps then he did.

A surprise pace-setter of the day was Pedro De la Rosa who managed to set the second fastest time of the day int he BMW-Sauber. He edged out both Rosberg and Schumacher in the Mercedes and Paffet in the McLaren to finish just two-tenths of a second of Massa’s fastest lap of the day.

Without getting too carried away, it is very hard to judge teams true pace this year during the pre-season testing, due to the  large fuel tanks. The discrepency that is now possible between fuel loads means some cars could be running extremely heavy to do long distance runs and other teams could be cheating by only putting a small number of laps worth of fuel in  their cars to impress the time sheets.

Williams seemed to struggle a little bit, with Rubins bringing out the red flag for a short time while his car was stopped out on track, however he managed to do over 70 laps in the car and set respectable pace ahead of the Torro Rosso and Renault team.

Renault were the slowest team of the day with Robert Kubica only managed a best time of 1:15 flat, however they managed to put in some decent track time with 69 laps.

On Tuesday we will see Hamilton step into the McLaren for the first time, with Jensen button taking over on the final day.

The times at the end of day 1 are as follows:

1. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 1:12.574, 102 Laps
2. Pedro de la Rosa, BMW Sauber, 1:12.784, 74 Laps
3. Michael Schumacher, Mercedes GP, 1:12.947, 40 Laps
4. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes GP, 1:13.543, 39 Laps
5. Gary Paffett, McLaren, 1:13.846, 86 Laps
6. Rubens Barrichello, Williams, 1:14.449, 75 Laps
7. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, 1:14.762, 18 Laps
8. Robert Kubica, Renault, 1:15.000, 69 Laps