Team reaction after day two in Barcelona test

Team Lotus Renault

Heikki Kovalainen: "I think the positive feeling with this car is growing even though we have had a couple more reliability issues today. They’re all teething problems and we are patient while we fix them one by one. We’ll get through this and put the reliability issues behind us as we have experienced people in the right positions who know how to deal with them. We still managed to complete a lot of work today and I can’t wait to get back in the car."

Ricardo Teixeira: "First I want to thank the whole team for the chance to drive again today. It was really good to be able to get some more laps done and everyone worked really hard to make me feel comfortable in and out of the car. I enjoyed myself out on track and by the third run I was able to start pushing a bit more so I think I did what I was asked to today and have taken another step forward in my development as a driver."

Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical officer: "That was a much more encouraging day today with 84 laps in total on the car. We did have a couple of minor issues with the fuel pressure and a water leak but overall it was a better day for reliability. We were able to give Ricardo his first proper run in an F1 car after he had helped us out in Valencia with our filming and he did just the job we wanted him to. He made no mistakes and consistently brought his lap times down on the medium tyre which I think all the teams have said is probably the slowest tyre we have. With Heikki we wanted to do a race distance which was slightly hindered by the water leak but overall we definitely made progress today."

Jaime Alguersuari completed his second and final day of testing here at the Catalunya circuit near Barcelona, during which he did a respectable number of laps on a day that featured fewer red flags than yesterday.

The Catalan driver had a busy programme, all of which was completed by the time the flag fell at 5 o’clock. It included a continuation of yesterday’s brake system evaluation and an assessment of different set-up configurations to suit various conditions and fuel loads. Jaime also tried three of the four Pirelli compounds – Hard, Soft and Supersoft – again working on car set-up to suit each one.

Tomorrow morning, our reserve driver, Daniel Ricciardo will have his second outing in the STR6, following on from his half day in Jerez, before Sebastien Buemi takes over for the afternoon and Monday.

On his second day of testing in Barcelona Kamui Kobayashi enyojed a trouble free day at the wheel of the Sauber C30-Ferrari. With a total of 125 laps he was able to complete a comprehensive programme.

James Key: “We completed 125 laps, which is good. It was a case of working through some programmes to understand more about the tyres. Barcelona is a good track to get a handle on tyres, but the cold condtions this morning made it a little tricky with high wear on the front tyres, although this was probably not unique to us. We ran through a race set up programme this morning using all three compounds – hard, medium and soft – to get an overview of the longevity of their performance. This also allowed Kamui to work on managing the tyres from a driver’s perspective. In the afternoon we worked on the set-up and used a new package to improve mechanical grip, and this looks okay. We also worked with the different compounds, but this time with set-up changes between them to understand better their one lap performance, although it wasn’t a qualifying simulation. We recovered well after a slightly tricky day yesterday, and Kamui did a very good job.”

Kamui Kobayashi: “We had no technical problems at all, and I think this was the first time we were able to complete the whole programme. We worked on the set-up, and we now have a better understanding of the tyres. We collected a lot of data, and I’m happy with what we achieved today.”

Sergio Pérez will take over for the final two days of testing in Barcelona.

Ferrari

Second day of testing for Scuderia Ferrari and the eleven other Formula 1 teams, working until Monday at the Montmelo circuit, outside Barcelona.

Fernando Alonso was again at the wheel of the F150th Italia. The Spaniard completed fewer laps than the average managed by the Scuderia so far, because of a couple of problems, one electrical, the other mechanical, which meant the team did not get through all its planned programme for the day. Despite all this, Fernando still managed to do 90 laps, the fastest in a time of 1.23.978, gathering useful data for the continued development of the car and to increase understanding of the Pirelli tyres.

Testing at this track continues tomorrow, with Felipe Massa at the wheel.

Sam Michael, Technical Director: It has been another good day of running concentrating on KERS, setup work, long runs and starts, and we’ve had no mechanical issues with the Williams Cosworth driveline. Most of the parts on the car now have done quite a few miles so we’re pushing into that zone where you can have high mileage failures. We need to do it now though to avoid failures on race weekends. We’re learning more about the Pirelli tyres and how to extract the most out of them - there’s definitely going to be some tricks to that this year! Right now the rate of performance development is high for all teams, so it’s not possible to put any real indicators on pace order.

Rubens Barrichello: We had a very productive day completing 118 laps which has helped make up for the time we lost yesterday. Today was the first time I was able to use KERS, running with it activated for about 75% of the day so I am feeling happy. We also did some longer runs and I feel we are getting better prepared with everything ready for the start of the season.

AT&T Williams will be back on track tomorrow, Sunday 20 February, with Pastor Maldonado in the FW33 for the third day of the test.

Jenson’s final day of running at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya was somewhat frustrating: a hydraulics failure after just a handful of laps of aero-mapping cost him the majority of the morning’s track-time. A similar failure towards the end of the day also brought an early end to proceedings.

Jenson Button: “We’re not doing as many laps as we’d like, so we’re a little behind some of the other teams, which is a bit of a disadvantage, but that’s something we’re addressing. Over the next two days, hopefully our reliability will be better, and we’ll be fully equipped with spare parts.

“Mileage not only helps reliability, but it’s also useful for set-up work. It’s difficult to balance the car with the front wing when you’re trying a variety of tyre compounds and fuel loads. And it’s taken a bit of a time, especially at a circuit like this, where getting the aero balance right is important.

“There’s a lot more performance still to come from this car – now we just need some proper mileage to see what it can do. Hopefully, Lewis will be able to achieve that over the next two days.”

Cool conditions greeted the teams today for the second day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona. Timo Glock joined the programme for the first of his two days at the wheel of the MVR-02 car and in the morning the team concentrated on system checks, with the cold and low grip track making it difficult to get heat into the tyres and for them to reach optimal temperature. During a series of short runs Timo was able to try different gearbox settings and conduct pit-stop practice.

After a short break for lunch, Timo was back out on track for the afternoon session where the team achieved more productive running with some set-up runs, in which the team worked to further understand the behaviour of the MVR-02 with new and used Pirelli PZero tyres.

Timo will be back in the car again tomorrow and Jérôme D’Ambrosio will drive again on the fourth and final day of testing in Barcelona.

Timo Glock: “It’s great to be back in the car again. It has been another very useful day for the team today which is important for us to keep understanding and refining the new car. We are also making good progress understanding the new Pirelli tyres and the team is really doing a good job getting ready for the start of the season.”

John Booth, Team Principal: “Another constructive day for us in Barcelona with yet more good mileage under our belts. With the Bahrain test and race being something of an unknown quantity at this time, we are pushing extremely hard to ensure we maximise the opportunity that this test provides to refine the car and achieve as much data as possible.”

Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel went quickest again today day as the team continued work on the second day of its test weekend in Barcelona.
Today, with race team personnel present, the team aimed to get through simulations of a race weekend P3, qualifying session and a race simulation.

The work largely went according to plan as Head of Race Engineering, Ian Morgan, explains: “Generally it was good today and we got through almost everything we wanted to. We had a few small problems, such as an issue with a heat shield. But that’s why we do these tests, to iron out any little problems, and generally the simulations went well.”

Mark Webber will take over driving duties tomorrow, when the team will run a similar programme to today. “The weather is forecast to deteriorate a bit overnight, which may make it difficult to run the simulations, but hopefully we can do the same simulations with Mark that we did with Seb today.”

It was a more productive day at the track as Vitaly drove the R31 this morning, before Nick took over driving duties in the afternoon.

The R31 was fitted with some new parts to the water system, which successfully resolved the problems the team experienced in Jerez.
The team logged some useful data from its suspension set-up programme in the afternoon, evaluating changes to the front and rear systems.

Vitaly Petrov: “After losing the track time yesterday, it was nice to be back in the car this morning and we completed quite a lot of laps. We found a lot of new things and worked on the general set-up, as well as understanding how the tyres are performing. It’s quite cold here, especially compared to Jerez, so it was difficult to warm up the tyres to begin with, but we’ve learned quite a lot from the short runs we did.”

Nick Heifeld: “The balance of the car was not as good as it was in Jerez, but we did improve things by the end of the day. We lost a bit of time at the start of the afternoon, but when I did get out we did some useful work including new tyre runs, data collection and some work on the car’s systems. But we still need lots more mileage because there are a lot of things on our job list to try, especially for the set-up of the car.”

Alan Permane: "The main task of the day was to put some miles on the car to make up for the track time we lost yesterday.
We focussed on medium-length runs of eight to ten laps, and worked on the set-up and understanding the tyres on this track. We ran on three out of the four dry tyre compounds, evaluating both new and scrubbed sets."

Nico Rosberg was in action at the wheel of the MGP W02 in Barcelona today for the second day of this week’s test.

A positive day of running saw Nico complete further acclimatisation work with the KERS system, alongside set-up comparisons and aerodynamic evaluations in the morning session. During the afternoon, the team successfully completed its second full race simulation of this week’s test, including live pit stops.

Nico completed 131 laps, which equates to over 600kms of running and is one lap short of two full race distances at the Circuit de Catalunya. He will continue the programme tomorrow before Michael resumes testing on Monday.

Nico Rosberg: “We completed a great deal of mileage and that was important for me to understand more about the tyre behaviour. There is a lot for the drivers to learn about how the Pirelli tyres are performing, and about how to make them last over the long runs; it´s going to be a key factor this year in the races and I think we made good progress on that front today. The reliability was ok but everybody in the team knows we need to keep pushing to make sure we are trouble-free for the start of the season.”

HRT F1 Cosworth

Today Vitantonio Liuzzi had his first experience in the Hispania Racing car. During the test the Italian driver got used to the team and the car. The aim of the day was to achieve a lot of mileage and make small improvements to adapt the car balance to Tonio´s driving style. It was also a good chance for Liuzzi to test the last spec of Pirelli tyres, alternating between medium, soft and supersoft compounds.

At the end of the two sessions, Vitantonio was satisfied with the work done and the progress made. Liuzzi ran a total of 70 laps clocking his best time at 1:27.044

Colin Kolles, Team Principal: “It was nice to see Tonio driving for us today, our aim was none other than to have him get used to the car. We tested different settings on the car balance during both sessions and, looking at the times, we clearly improved as the day went on. We are very happy with Tonio’s work today”.

Vitantonio Liuzzi: “Today was a positive day. We made a lot of changes on the car, focusing particularly on the set-up and the tyres. It was a chance for me to get to know the new tyres and the team as it was my first day with Hispania Racing. We couldn’t do a lot of laps since we had a problem with the gearbox in the afternoon, but we were able to clock a good time given the circumstances. We did long runs and short runs to test the performance of the car. Overall, I believe we’ve taken a step forwards with the balance of the car”.

Paul di Resta continued his preparations for his debut season in Formula One with a further day of testing in the Force India F1 Team’s VJM04 at Barcelona today.
After the delays yesterday Paul completed 80 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya, split over a variety of run lengths and set-ups. He also tested different tyre compounds over longer runs and, with only one period of downtime, largely completed his programme.
The 24 year old Scot posted the ninth quickest time, a 1:25.194. Adrian Sutil continues the test tomorrow.

Paul di Resta: Today was a definite improvement over yesterday’s running with a lot more laps under our belt. We ran through a lot of set-ups with the different tyre compounds and the car felt more balanced, which showed in a generally better lap time. Apart from the problem with the throttle sensor in the afternoon everything went pretty much to plan and we’ve got a lot of information to feed into Adrian’s programme tomorrow and for the rest of the test.

Dominic Harlow, circuit engineering director: Paul again concentrated on long run comparison of the tyres with some further aero, brake material and set-up tests today. A sensor problem later in the afternoon resulted in the only real down time of the day. It was a reliability issue, but in testing and we are confident it is understood and can be addressed. Adrian takes over the car tomorrow and will continue with the tyre programme.