07/02/2013
NEWS STORY
A qualifying lap sees Felipe Massa top the timesheets on the third day of testing at Jerez, the Brazilian out-pacing the nearest opposition, Mercedes Nico Rosberg, by almost a second.
It was the Brazilian's third day in the car - before handing over to Pedro de la Rosa - and he was able to get through the scheduled programme without any problems, completing 85 laps.
Early on he completed the work which he began yesterday and from mid-morning onwards moved on to a comparison of the various tyre compounds. Back on track after the lunch break, he had a spin but was able to continue, ending the day with a series of long run tests.
"These were three very important days," said the Brazilian. "They were especially useful in the sense of finding the right direction for the team to focus on when it comes to the development work between now and the opening round in Australia. We had a lot of items to test and the car went well, it was not difficult to drive and it seemed to me to be quite stable and balanced. Today, we fitted the soft compound tyres for the first time and I went faster than I had expected.
"The quick lap?" he continued. "It means nothing and while I'm pleased to have done a good time, that was not the priority: we must still concentrate on the car set-up and we will definitely be doing this during the next test in Barcelona. Several teams have very quick and well balanced cars and so I am one hundred percent keeping my feet on the ground."
After two days of misery, Nico Rosberg gave Mercedes something to smile about, the German completing a mammoth 148 trouble-free laps on his way to posting the second best time of the day.
The German's work focused on reliability running to put mileage on the car - the W04 having only completed 29 laps over the previous two days - and aerodynamic evaluations.
He ran the medium and hard compounds throughout the day, setting his fastest time on the medium tyres. He also evaluated a new front wing design this morning and ran with the new parts throughout the afternoon.
His total number of laps exceeded the highest single-day total from last year's pre-season test in Jerez (132 laps for Michael Schumacher in the 2011 car). During the final hour of running he also completed a number of practice pit stops.
"I'm very happy with today and I think it was probably a personal record for me to do almost 150 laps," said Rosberg. "I've never been so well prepared physically as I am this season; I feel on top form and it was no problem to complete the programme.
"To drive the distance from Silverstone to Spa in one day with no problems whatsoever is a fantastic achievement from the team," he continued. "It really made up for the last two days and put a smile on everybody's face. In terms of driving the car, I have a good feeling, I can push it and feel comfortable - but obviously we still have plenty of work to do to continue improving."
Sebastian Vettel was one of three world champions on duty today, the German taking over from Mark Webber. The three-time world champion wasted no time in exploring the RB9's potential and set the day's third-quickest time, with a lap of 1:19.052. After 102 laps the German said it had been good to get behind the wheel again after the winter break.
Early in the session, rivals hearts may have missed a beat or two when a fault with the timing system incorrectly showed the world champion having appeared to post a time of 1:08s, around 10s quicker than anything anyone else was doing.
"So far, I think we can be pretty happy," he said. "Mark had a good couple of days to start with and I took over today. It was great to get back in the car, to get rid of the rust and to get back in the groove again. The first feeling is good and the car is working well. It's difficult to judge the speed, but in terms of reliability it looks pretty good. For today we accomplished what we set out to achieve - which was to put a lot of laps on the car.
"At this stage it's very difficult to judge anything else," he added. "It could be that there is a favourite after these three tests, but it could turn out to be completely different in Australia because it's a different track with different characteristics. I expect the championship to be at least as tight as last year, as the regulations haven't changed so much.
"In terms of the times, it's always nice to be on top, but if there's one phase of the year where it matters least, it's here. Now is the time to do our homework. It's good for us to do a lot of laps, to see that the car is working well and we'll go from there."
"Obviously today was Sebastian's first chance to drive the RB9 and, as with Mark, the car behaved well," added Race Engineering Co-ordinator, Andy Damerum. "We were a little delayed getting out this morning because of a few changes we wanted to make, but it didn't hamper progress and another 102 laps is very respectable.
"Today was about carrying on the work of the past two days, evolving the car and how it's performing. We worked on set-up in the morning, did some aero work in the afternoon and also put in some longer runs to check durability and to continue assessing the tyres. Tomorrow, it'll hopefully be more of the same."
Another world champion in action today was Kimi Raikkonen, the Finn getting his first taste of the E21. Taking over from Romain Grosjean, Raikkonen spent the day focussing on a programme of aerodynamic assessment. However, as the Enstone team ran through a variety of exhaust evaluations, his running ended early due to a clutch issue.
"It was good to get behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car again," said Raikkonen. "The E21 feels quite good so far, even if the balance isn't quite to my liking yet. That didn't stop us going through the programme we wanted to do which had a lot of aero runs in it. We know the car can go faster, we were just running through what we needed to achieve. It's a shame that we had a clutch issue at the end of the day, but that's why we come testing so we can find these problems and fix them."
"Although we haven't covered as many laps as we have on the previous two days we have still have been very productive," added Trackside Operations Director, Alan Permane. "We spent much of the morning testing various exhaust exit specifications for our Coanda system.
"The car isn't yet fully to Kimi's liking, but we improved this through the day. We still have work to do with the balance, which is something we'll work on tomorrow. Running ended early for us with a clutch failure which we're investigating, but overall we've had a productive day of aero and exhaust testing."
James Rossiter and Paul di Resta were on duty for Force India, the Englishman handing over to the Scot in the afternoon. Rossiter was involved in an incident early in the morning when he collided with a mechanic as he pitted at the end of his second run. Entering the pits a little too quickly, with cold brakes and tyres, the car slithered into the jack-man sending him into the air. Thankfully, the crew member was not injured, though the clash meant a new nose was needed for the VJM06.
"It has been four and a half years since I last drove a Formula One car," said Rossiter, "but with the simulator experience I've built up recently it didn't take too long to get back up to speed. The programme today has been very useful for getting a feel for the car as a reference for the simulator.
"The cars have changed quite a lot and it was the first time I've used KERS," he added. "It's important to know how the tyres behave and we've worked hard to try and understand them this week. That will help make the simulator model more representative as a way of exploiting the car's potential."
"The programme this morning with James went very well," added Chief Race Engineer, Jakob Andreasen. "We continued with the aero work and focussed on getting James comfortable with the car and back in the groove. Once the aero passes were complete, we had a chance to give James some short and long runs with both the medium and soft tyres, which will give him an important reference when running on the simulator.
"After lunch we installed Paul in the car, but an exhaust failure forced us to end the day early. Fortunately, good work by the engineers using the telemetry meant the damage was only superficial."
At McLaren, Jenson Button was back in action, the Englishman completing his second day of running this week and concluding his planned programme.
As in previous days, the morning kicked off with further aero evaluation work - conducted over a number of shorter runs. The team then ran through a suite of larger mechanical changes in order to understand key changes in set-up - these were fully evaluated over a series of longer runs throughout the afternoon.
The team also conducted a number of live pit stops during the afternoon's running, while Button made a precautionary stop on track during the session's dying moments, the car thought to have run out of fuel.
Esteban Gutierrez was one of two drivers effectively making their debut as a fully fledged Grand Prix driver today, the other being Valtteri Bottas. The Mexican said he immediately felt comfortable in the car and was able to complete a comprehensive programme over 110 laps, which included aerodynamic measurements, tyre and brake material testing and several long runs with high fuel loads, without any technical problems.
"It was a very positive day," said the Mexican, "I had the chance to get to know the car and the tyres that are behaving quite differently. Because of this it was important to understand the warm-up characteristics and the behaviour on long runs with high fuel loads. It was very interesting to feel the progress - something that gets me up to speed. I'm positive about the new car and I immediately felt comfortable in it."
"Another good day and 110 laps completed without any reliability problems, " added Tom McCullough, the Swiss outfit's Head of Track Engineering, "which is very encouraging. Esteban has a total of six testing days before going to Melbourne, so we had a comprehensive programme from a driver and car point of view, and we got a lot of that achieved today."
The more cynical among you might suggest that Max Chilton's best lap (1:21.269) which put him ninth fastest, was done on fumes - the sort of stunt Arrows used to pull in an attempt to impress a potential sponsor.
Like Nico Rosberg at Mercedes, Chilton completed more laps today than the team has managed over the previous two days including achieving its first race distance.
A few difficulties with the on-board electronics gave rise to a slightly broken programme in the morning, so the early part of the race distance work was rather stilted as a result of time spent in the garage. The engineers worked with the team's technical partners to resolve the issues to allow a shift of focus towards understanding the mechanical systems of the car. In the afternoon the team completed the race distance work before heading into a performance programme.
"I'm really pleased with how my second day in the car has gone," said Chilton, "and I'm happy to have been able to reveal a little more of the car's potential. Obviously these are very early days for all of us, but there are some very positive signs and I'm excited about that.
"The race runs went very well and we're starting to understand how the 2013 tyres are going to wear. Having completed the long run work we needed to, it was nice to have a new tyre run at the end of the day to explore more of the car's performance. What we found was very encouraging and this has given the Team a nice boost at this early stage of the MR02's development."
"Overall, today has been a much more positive day," added John Booth, "and we are certainly moving in the right direction. We are less happy with the mileage we are putting on the car, but we can take encouragement from having identified some of the areas for improvement now that we have completed our initial race distance work.
"As it was Max's final day in the car this week, we opted to give him a performance programme to work through. We are still a long way from having any kind of optimised set-up on the car and we can see some areas where we need to work on this very early performance package. We look forward to starting to explore some of these tomorrow with Luiz Razia after completing some reliability work in the morning.
"Credit to Max for another great day's work. It hasn't been easy for either driver so far, but Max has responded well. He clearly appreciates the highs and lows which go with testing and he has applied himself well as the Team worked to resolve the teething issues."
Making his debut as a fully fledged race driver, Valtteri Bottas was the centre of much media attention. The Finn completed 86 laps as he concentrated on aero evaluations and tyre testing.
"It was my first day as an official race driver and it's been a long wait," said the Finn. "Since the announcement last year I've been looking forward to this day and it's great to finally get the season underway. Everything went as planned and we completed a lot of laps doing both aero and tyre work to gather some good data. It was a great start to 2013 for me."
"We've had a productive day today with Valtteri completing a busy test programme without issue," added Mike Coughlan, the Grove outfit's Technical Director. "We did a number of higher fuel runs as Valtteri clocked up 86 laps on his first outing as an official race driver for the team.
"The circuit is quite aggressive on tyres," he continued, "and we have already gained a lot of data over the last two days, so we decided to switch our focus. Aside from some core mechanical work in preparation for the FW35, we focussed on further aero evaluations throughout the day and gathered all the data we required."
Charles Pic took over from Giedo Van der Garde, the Frenchman completing 57 laps on his way to posting the eleventh best time of the day.
"It was very good to get back on track and for my first day with the team it's been pretty good," he said. "We had a technical issue late in the morning session that stopped the car on track but the team did a good job to fix it and give me enough time in the afternoon session to complete 57 laps in total.
"The important thing for the first day was starting to get used to the car," he continued, "particularly working with KERS and my new team. Everyone's been very helpful since I first went to the factory and I've already spent time in the simulator there, and with my engineers and mechanics, so nothing was completely new to me. Obviously it's important for me to feel comfortable in the car as quickly as possible and we've worked through a lot of the normal procedures today so I'm pleased with what we've achieved.
"Tomorrow we'll keep working through a similar program, as well as some aero tests, and just keep adding to the mileage."
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