20/11/2010
NEWS STORY
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World championship runner-up Fernando Alonso topped the timesheets on the second day of tyre testing at Yas Island, effectively bringing the curtain down on the 2010 season.
"Overall, it was a positive day," said the Spaniard who completed 105 laps. "We had no particular problems with the Pirelli tyres and we were able to gather a lot of data for their engineers to work on. We are pleased with the way we worked and in how we were able to adapt the set-up of the car to suit the new tyres, especially in terms of the work we can do on the new car in preparation for next season.
"From what we could see, the switch from Bridgestone to Pirelli should not be a traumatic one," he continued. "Being back on this track after the disappointment of Sunday? It's normal that all of us still feel very disappointed, but that's part of sport. I would think it's the same thing the Dutch football players felt when they lost the World Cup final back in July: then, after a few weeks, they realised they had achieved something, while so many others had not even got anywhere close. The same goes for us: the final victory eluded us, but in any case we had a great season, with a fantastic fight back in the second part of the year. Next year we will try again, because we are Ferrari!"
Ferrari will be back on track on 28th November at the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia, as part of the Ferrari World Finals, the event which traditionally brings the Maranello outfit's racing season to a close.
Second quickest was Michael Schumacher, the German getting his first taste of the rubber which he hopes will help him rediscover the form which saw him win seven titles. Schumacher continued the programme begun by team-mate Nico Rosberg on Friday revisiting many of the set-up evaluations to further improve the team's understanding of the new tyres.
"Today was my first day of testing for 2011 and I feel that we had an interesting session," said the German. "We gathered a lot of data and insights, and have positive feedback from our first impression of the new tyres. I am probably the only driver to have driven with Pirelli tyres before but it was 20 years ago and I didn't have any certain expectations before today. In terms of consistency, it looked quite good but we were using the 2010 car today and it will be all about how these tyres suit our 2011 car. I am already curious to try it out but at the same time I am looking forward to having a break now. I am sure the guys are too and they clearly deserve it. I would like to thank all of them for the good job they have done over the season and I have massively enjoyed working with them."
"Michael and Nico have now completed their first days in the car on Pirelli tyres and both have been impressed," added Ross Brawn. "This week's test has been very productive for us and comes at a time when we can use the information gathered here to fine-tune the detail of our 2011 car and optimise the areas which we believe will be critical. Pirelli have done an excellent job to get these tyres to where they are now after such a short period of time and we are looking forward to working closely with them through the winter test programme at the start of next year."
Sebastian Vettel continued for Red Bull as the Austrian outfit continued to evaluate the performance of the RB6 on the new tyres and find the best set-up to suit them.
"We have had two busy days on track, getting our first impressions of the new tyres," said the German, "analysing how they perform and looking at some things for next year. There is still a lot to do, but I think the tyres are already better than expected. Since February we haven't really had time to do any in-depth testing on track, so these two days have given us a chance to reflect on things we have tried during the season."
Tomorrow (Sunday), just seven days after taking his historic World Championship title, Vettel returns to his home town of Heppenheim in Germany where he can expect a hero's welcome.
"It's been interesting to work with different tyres here," added head of race engineering, Ian Morgan, "and it was good to have the opportunity to get information using a car we know well before starting to work with the new car next year.
"Overall we have done everything we planned to and we're looking forward to working with Pirelli in the future. It's sad that this is the last day of running for the RB6 - it's a car that we have enjoyed a great deal of success with this year - but we're looking forward to 2011."
Williams, which has Rubens Barrichello on duty once again, focussed on brake testing, set-up work and tyre evaluations. The Brazilian completed 101 laps on his way to posting the fourth best time of the day.
"We did a lot of laps!" said the Brazilian. "We learnt everything about the tyre we needed to and have a good amount of data check out over the winter. I want to thank all of the team for the effort they have put in over the year. They have been great to work with. I am now looking forward to going home and recharging over the next two months and coming back refreshed in 2011."
"We evaluated different braking systems today from which we have some interesting results," added Tom McCullough, the Grove outfit's senior test engineer. "The rest of the session was spent concentrating on performance set-up work and understanding the new tyres. In summary, the team has had a productive week in Abu Dhabi. We're pleased with the progress made with Pirelli, and we've collected plenty of valuable information to work on before returning to the track with the new car next year."
"It has been quite a productive day and it's good to complete so many laps on the new tyres," said Robert Kubica who completed 91 laps. "Like yesterday we ran with both compounds and collected a lot of data, which will be useful for us and for Pirelli as well. Overall it has been a positive couple of days and now we have to try and extract as many conclusions as we can from the data. My initial feeling is good and it seemed that the tyres got better as the track conditions improved throughout the day."
"We've had a second useful day and managed to complete medium length runs on both the soft and medium compounds without any significant issues," added Alan Permane. "This allowed us to start understanding the tyre characteristics and assess the degradation rates. We struggled with some understeer today, which we never totally got rid of, so we still need to try and understand that. Over the next couple months we will continue building our relationship with Pirelli by exchanging data so that we're ready for winter testing to resume next February."
McLaren had Oliver Turvey on duty in the morning and Gary Paffett in the afternoon. As the track surface and tyres continued to evolve, it was useful to note that both Oliver and Gary's comments on car balance dovetailed closely. The Woking team managed to gather significant modelling data for both the car and the tyre, which will prove extremely useful over the winter.
The team reports that it has already developed a "very harmonious working relationship" with the Pirelli engineers and has helped to provide the Italian manufacturer with considerable feedback on the new tyres, most notably on tyre-life and durability.
Paul di Resta and Tonio Liuzzi were on duty for Force India as the Silverstone outfit went about gathering as much information as possible on weight distribution, aero settings and general balance to feed back into the development programme of the 2011 challenger, the VJM04, which continues apace back at the team's HQ. The team also ran extensive tests with the soft and medium tyre compounds.
"We have been looking forward to this test since we received the first real information about the tyres from them in early September," said Dominic Harlow, the team's chief race engineer. "Over these two days we've covered more than two race distances and have been impressed with Pirelli's tyres.
We've allowed all three of our drivers to make an overall assessment in comparison to this year's baseline, and then we've carried out further parameterised testing with the two compounds available. In addition we have run with a great many additional sensors and data acquisition systems to collect as much information as possible from the tyres on track. Having used eight sets, four option and four prime, we feel we've built a reasonable early picture of the tyres at a circuit which, although changing in condition, has proven productive for testing.
"The next steps are for us to incorporate what we have learned into the development of VJM04, and for Pirelli's engineers to analyse the data they have collected as they determine the tyre specifications that will be available to us when we are next testing in February."
Sauber, like McLaren and Force India, had two drivers on duty, Kamui Kobayashi in the morning and his 2011 teammate Sergio Perez in the afternoon. Between them the two drivers completed 89 laps, the Japanese driver finishing ninth quickest and the Mexican twelfth.
"Despite some technical problems with the car this morning I still gained a little bit more experience with these tyres and we got more data for next year," said Kobayashi. "It was my last run with this car, so I want to say thank you C29! I also want to thank the team, and I'm looking forward to continuing to work with them."
"It was a pretty good day for me even though we had a few problems," said Perez, "but we still got work done and have got a lot of data to be analysed now. It was important for me to do longer runs. I also felt a bit more comfortable with the car and more familiar with the procedures and the engineers, which enabled me to give better feedback to them. I'm quite happy and looking forward to pre-season testing."
"It was another useful day with the new tyres," added the Swiss team's technical director James Key, "but both drivers suffered from technical failures which compromised our programme. We will look into these issues when we are back in the factory. We learned a little bit more about how the tyres are behaving and it was important for Sergio to get his first run on Pirelli tyres. We had only two sets for him. The main part of his programme was to run on race fuel levels to get a feeling for the car in race condition. Thank you to the team for all the hard work this year! We are looking forward to returning with the new car."
It fell to Sebastien Buemi to give the Toro Rosso STR5 it's last outing of 2010, as the Faenza outfit concentrated on evaluating the new tyres from Pirelli.
"We got through a lot of work, although it is difficult to draw any conclusions regarding actual performance," said the Swiss, "even if the feeling from the tyres is pretty good at this early stage. Now, our engineers will have a lot of work back at the factory to ensure the new car suits the characteristics of the tyres. Overall, I do not think we could have done a better job at this test, so it is nice to see the 2010 season end on a positive note."
"This has been a productive day," added chief engineer Laurent Mekies. "We got through a lot of laps, with a mix of short and long runs and it was especially useful that Sebastien was able to do a very long run, equivalent to a race distance on the soft Pirelli tyre, so there is a lot of data from which we can learn for next season. Apart from the work on the tyre front, we also tried a couple of mechanical components aimed at next year's car and we ran trouble free throughout the day."
Jarno Trulli was on duty for Lotus, the Italian completing 83 laps on his way to posting a best time of 1:44.521.
"It's been a very positive day," said the Italian. "It was good to try the Pirelli tyres for the first time and while we have obviously got a lot of work ahead of us I think this was a good start. We will need to focus on the driveability of the tyres - on performance they were good, but we will need to work together in a clear direction to maximise the handling of the car. The hard compounds were pretty consistent, a little less so with the softs, but we have gathered a lot of data that will play an important part in the development of next year's car. Now the season is over I want to thank the whole team for their work this year - we have finished where we wanted to be and everyone in the team has played their part in helping us reach our goals, so thank you to them and the fans for everything this year."
"Another successful day for us and a successful conclusion to both the test with Pirelli and the year in general," added Mike Gascoyne. "My thanks to Jarno for his work today - he gave us some excellent feedback which will give us valuable data for the development of the 2011 car. As this is the last run for the T127 I also want to thank the whole team for all their efforts in what has been a fantastic year and thank all our fans for giving us such great support throughout the season. Now we look ahead to 2011 and we are all excited about taking the next step forward with the new package in what is certain to be another very exciting chapter in our story."
Pastor Maldonado was back in action for Hispania, the Venezuelan completing 65 laps - mostly short runs - as the Spanish team gets used to the new tyres.
"I am very happy to have been able to do the two days of the test with Hispania," said Maldonado, who also carried out one day of the Young Driver test with Williams. "Today we tried different settings on the car to find the right set-up with the new tyres. Our focus was not on doing the best lap time but on getting a lot of data which will be important for the development of the car for next year. I really enjoyed being in a Formula 1 car and getting more experience. I am already looking forward to the next season when I hopefully can make use of it in Formula 1."
"After gaining a lot of data about the new tyres, we used last night to analyze all of it and define our testing program for today," added Colin Kolles. "We tried to get more data at the last day of testing and we have been able to learn more about the tyres and how to use them. During this week we have given three talented young drivers the opportunity to get experience in a Formula 1 car. It was good to work with them and we hope to see them in Formula 1 soon. Our aim during this testing week was to do as many laps as possible and to have as much information about the new Pirelli tyres and the car behaviour into the winter break to be able to keep on working with and be well prepared for the next tests before the new season begins."
Virgin, who had Timo Glock on duty, ended the year on a high by achieving more mileage on a single car than on any other day of its debut season. The programme for the day as a continuation of the tyre evaluation work started yesterday, with four more sets of the medium and soft compound rubber providing a further opportunity to understand their characteristics and behaviour. The team has also been running some mechanical developments for next year's car which, thanks to the excellent mileage achieved, has allowed the team to gather even more meaningful results to feed into the design for next year.
"First of all my thanks to the team for one final push this week," said Glock. "It's been another busy week for us all at the end of the season but the information that we have collected will be invaluable for next year's programme. We had a very good day of running and we have been able to gather a huge amount of data from the tyres and the development parts for 2011. With regard to the Pirelli tyres I think we have seen some positive things and also some things that need to be addressed, but that is to be expected. The Option looks very good and is very consistent but there seems to be a lot of rear degradation with the Prime, so that's something to be worked on. Generally though a very good test and now it's over to the technical guys to feed all that back into the programme and make sure we have a strong package next season."
"We said we wanted to end the season on a high and that is exactly what we've done here in Abu Dhabi this week with four very positive days of running," added team principal John Booth. "We've done some good work with the tyres over the last two days and this has been an important step towards our 2011 programme. We have also been able to demonstrate just how far we have come this season by achieving over 400kms of running today. I would like to thank Pirelli for a very positive start to our working relationship. They have been a pleasure to work with. Once again, my thanks to everyone in the team for another week of hard work and I wish everyone a well-deserved break before the big push gets underway for next year."
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