21/02/2012
NEWS STORY
Sebastian Vettel headed the timesheets on the first day of testing at Barcelona, the German finishing ahead of Nico Hulkenberg and Lewis Hamilton.
Vettel, who completed 79 laps, lost time in the early afternoon while the team made changes to his car. Like most of his rivals he set his best time of the day during the morning session.
"It's clear that the cars have less grip than last year," said the world champion, "but we try to come back from that slowly. It's difficult to judge where we are compared with the others right now. It's all based on feeling and the feeling I have inside the car at the moment is fine. I think we had a good day today, with no trouble. We had a long lunch break when we made some changes, but not because anything broke down. All in all, it was a good day."
"We got through most of what we wanted today," said Ian Morgan, head of race engineering. "We had a longer than usual break for lunch, in order to change some things, but that had always been planned. So, while we lost a little time, it wasn't at the expense of getting the tasks completed.
"These tests are a process of continuous development," he continued, "and the programme today was influenced a bit by what we learned at the last test. We also had to test some items that were put into development before the car even took to the track.
"The next two days will be somewhat different," he added. "We will be doing race simulations and will have the whole race team here, so we will try to mix that with continuing the development. There aren't many chances to run through a whole race weekend before the season starts and we'll do a simulation with each driver. Those should keep us on our toes for the next couple of days."
Second quickest was Nico Hulkenberg, whose programme included tyre comparison work, aero sweeps and long runs in the afternoon.
"Once gain it's good to do so many laps," said the German, "and I'm pleased with how things went today. It was only my second day in the car and I'm still bedding in and getting used to things, but after each run I felt a bit more comfortable. We started with some aero runs and more data gathering this morning, and then moved to longer runs in the afternoon. The car feels consistent and the drivability is good so I feel positive heading into tomorrow."
"Another busy day with a lot of mileage for Nico as he continues to build up his feel for the VJM05," added chief engineer, Jakob Andreason. "We began the programme with aero sweeps and also evaluated some mechanical components to address some improvements we felt could be made to the car following the Jerez test. The car has performed well throughout the day with good reliability, which allowed us to focus on adding performance. We completed the majority of the programme and got through our long runs in the afternoon, which helped build up Nico's knowledge of the hard and medium compound tyres."
Second busiest driver today was Lewis Hamilton, the Englishman completing 114 laps on his way to posting the third best time of the day. His day began with some initial data collection, including aero work on newer rubber before his engineers began a more comprehensive programme of tyre and set-up evaluation for the remainder of the morning.
After completing a number of shorter runs, focus in the afternoon turned to longer runs, with the McLaren driver declaring himself pleased with the MP4-27's behaviour, particularly in the high-speed corners.
"With more than 500kms under our belt, this was an extremely productive day," said team manager, David Redding. "The car ran reliably and without problem all day and Lewis was happy with the car. Given the cooler temperatures we experienced today, we're optimistic that we're headed in the right direction with our tyre and set-up work for the start of the season."
It was another positive day for Toro Rosso, who had Daniel Ricciardo on duty as the team worked on evaluating several set-up configurations with various fuel loads.
Unfortunately, the day was cut short with a technical problem that stopped the car out on track and with only one hour of the day remaining, there was not enough time to get the car back on the circuit.
"It was a good day with 76 laps under my belt," said Ricciardo. "In the morning, apart from working on the overall development of the car, we were also getting ready for Melbourne, running through various procedures, working to a set time scale, as if it was a race weekend. That went well and in the afternoon, we did some race-type runs which were successful until the car stopped with just the final hour to go."
At Ferrari, Fernando Alonso was on duty, the Spaniard continuing with the tasks of development and data acquisition relating to the behaviour of the new car. The two-time world champion completed 75 laps on his way to posting the fifth best time of the day.
"There’s still a lot of work to do, but isn’t that what we are here for?" said Alonso. "I don’t think we will see anything different over the coming days, because before we can see what this car is really capable of, we must piece together all the pieces in the jigsaw.
"I know there is much expectation from the outside," he admitted, "but we are totally focussed on ourselves, without giving a thought to what is going on around us. We will only start to properly understand the situation in Melbourne."
It was a promising debut for the Mercedes F1 WO3, which was unveiled shortly before the start of this morning's session. A smooth morning session, with Michael Schumacher at the wheel, enabled the team to begin set-up comparisons with the new chassis. However, a hydraulic problem identified during the afternoon session brought an early end to the planned programme
"My initial feelings with our new car are certainly good," said the seven-time champion. "I'm happy with the different evaluations that we have done over the last week, but obviously with the rule changes, we won't know more until later. It's certainly an improvement and we have worked hard on the areas we had defined last year. The aerodynamics figures look good so I'm not worried about the shape of the nose! Even though we had the hydraulic problem today, I'm pleased with all the mileage we have achieved so far with the new car."
It was a problematic day for Sauber, which had Sergio Perez on duty. A number of technical issues meant the Mexican youngster could only complete 66 laps and leaving the team unable to complete its planned programme.
"We obviously didn't cover the mileage we wanted to today," said Giampaolo Dall'Ara, the Swiss outfit's head of track engineering, "but such things happen in testing. In the morning we had some doubts related to the structure, which didn't occur in Jerez and therefore appear to be track related. It is important to discover something like this during testing instead of at a Grand Prix weekend. We touched base with our experts in Hinwil for analyses and at the same time found a mechanical solution here at the track.
"In the afternoon we then had another unforeseen break due to a mechanical issue with a rear anti roll bar. Not actually a big issue, but quite time consuming as the gear box had to be removed again, etc. So now we will concentrate on our test programme for tomorrow and hope for a rather smoother session then."
"It wasn't an easy day for us," admitted Perez. "Nevertheless during the 66 laps we collected some very useful data, which we will analyse tonight, so in this regard it was still a satisfying day. I am very much looking forward to tomorrow and I hope we can get a lot more work done then."
At Williams, Bruno Senna focussed on aero correlation tests and set-up work, the Brazilian completing 97 laps on his way to posting the eighth best time of the day.
"It has been a very interesting day working with different set-ups to assess the reliability of the FW34," said the Brazilian. "We need to keep working hard to understand the car even better. The team will continue working over the next few days with Valtteri and Pastor, as we look to improve both pace and consistency.
"We completed 97 laps, working successfully through a detailed aero correlation test programme in the morning before moving on to car set-up optimisation, utilising a range of tyre compounds throughout the afternoon," added Mark Gillan. "We continue tomorrow with Valtteri in the FW34 before Pastor takes over for the final two days.
It was a difficult day for Caterham also, Kovalainen completing just 31 laps following a rear track rod failure in the morning.
"That obviously wasn't how we wanted day one here to go," said the Finn, "but that's what testing is for - pushing everything to the limit to make sure we get rid of the problems before we get to the first race. It's hard to learn a lot from limited laps, but I'm back in the car on Friday and I'm sure we'll be able to push on with the program between now and then and make sure we get as much as we can out of the next three days on track."
"We had a rear track rod failure on Heikki's third run this morning which brought him to a halt on track," added Mike Gascoyne. "As soon as we had the car back in the garage we identified the issue and managed to fix it on site, and we have more parts coming out tonight to make sure we don't have the same problem again. We know that this car is fundamentally reliable, so the aim for the next three days is to complete the plan for this test and put ourselves back on schedule."
Having experienced a problem with its new chassis in the morning, Lotus opted to take an early bath as it awaited another chassis to be sent out from Enstone. However, having run a simulations at the factory the team was able to identify an area which requires additional work. Consequently, much to the surprise of its rivals, the British team has withdrawn from the remainder of the test.
"Not running this week has been a tough decision to take," admitted Eric Boullier, "but we feel that our choice is the right one. On the positive side, we have quickly identified the issue with the chassis and our design office has already devised a solution. We will be present at next week's test in Barcelona. We draw faith from the fact that the E20 was quick out of the box in Jerez and showed its reliability there. We have a lot of work ahead of us over the next week but everyone at Enstone is ready for this challenge."
Busiest man today was Charles Pic, the Frenchman, who was making his debut with his new team, completing 121 laps in the 2011 car.
The main focus of the day was reacclimatising the race team to pit stops after the winter break and providing an opportunity for Pic to practice these in representative conditions.
"It has been a very good first day for me and a positive way to begin the new season," said the Frenchman. "The car has worked very well all day so we were able to push through with the programme. We made a lot of pit stops this morning and practiced all the procedures, which was very helpful for me, and this afternoon we completed a race simulation. I learned a lot from the day and I'm looking forward to running again tomorrow."
"It's great to be back in action after almost three months away from the race track," added John Booth. "Although it is disappointing that we are not here with our 2012 car, the opportunity to use the MVR-02 with its impressive reliability to complete a whole series of pit stop scenarios with the race team and Charles is invaluable. For the past two months the team have been practising every day in the factory and this hard work came to fruition today.
"There seems to be a genuine improvement in the standard of the stops and Charles' practice today will stand him in good stead for the opening race in Melbourne. We finished the afternoon off with a full race simulation for Charles stepping through the three options of tyres suited to this circuit and also completing live pit stops. Overall a positive way to start our 2012 season testing and we look forward to a continuation of Charles' development over the next few days and to seeing Timo in the car briefly on Thursday."
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