22/02/2012
NEWS STORY
Force India's Nico Hulkenberg, topped the timesheets at Barcelona today ahead of Sergio Perez, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso, the four covered by just 0.572s.
"Nico's second day in the car saw a continuation of the programme we started yesterday," said chief engineer, Jakob Andreasen, "with aero runs, balance and set-up work, and a full day of tyre comparisons. "We got through all the items on the job list and once again the car has run faultlessly, which is a credit to the design team at Silverstone.
"Nico's feedback on the handling of the car continues to be positive and we now have a good feel for the set-up directions we need to take to extract even more performance."
"We started the day with some aero work," added Hulkenberg, "trying some constant speed runs and collecting more data. Then, the rest of the day was spent working on the balance of the car and trying out all four tyre compounds. I did some short runs, long runs and just got a feel for the tyre characteristics and how the car reacts to them. Once again the car has been very drivable all day and our baseline set-up has proved to be a good starting point for running all the different compounds."
Following yesterday's frustration, when the team was hampered by technical issues, Sauber and Sergio Perez had a much better day. The Mexican completed his planned programme, which included a full tyre comparison of all compounds, as well as aero and set up work.
"Today was a lot better," said Perez, "even though in the end we lost a bit of track time because of the exhaust problem. I am happy with how things went, we have gathered plenty of information to go through now and I believe we are working in the right direction. I hope we get some more work done with Kamui driving the next two days, and then we will be well prepared for next week's final pre-season test session."
"This was a far more positive day," added Giampaolo Dall'Ara, the Swiss outfit's head of track engineering. "Despite an exhaust problem in the late afternoon, we went through a good programme. Quite a few high priority points have been ticked off the job list. In the morning we started with aero comparisons, and then did some proper mechanical set up work. We also carried out a full comparison of all tyre compounds - super soft, soft, medium and hard - and ran different fuel loads. Of course it is not possible to really judge the car's performance yet as we don't know the other teams' programmes, but today was productive and now we can work out the programme for tomorrow when Kamui takes over."
After spending yesterday on development, Sebastian Vettel and a full race team put the RB8 through the rigours of a full race simulation today. In total the German completed 104 laps on his way to posting the third best time of the day.
"I'm happy that we got a lot of laps done," said the world champion. "Unfortunately, we had a little bit of a problem, it was small, but with testing you stop whenever there's a issue, take a look and see what's what and that always takes up a bit of time. But nevertheless, in the afternoon I was quite happy. We got a lot of laps done, more than 100, so we got through most of the programme.
"I think we are on the right road with the car," he continued. "The first impressions at the last test were fine. The car reacted the way we expected. I keep talking about the loss of downforce compared to last year, as we don't have the tools we had, but this is the same for everyone, not just us. So, we'll get on top of it and we'll spend the coming days trying to make improvements, find more performance and make the car faster. But so far, so good."
"It was again so cold this morning that we had problems with pit stop practice," revealed Ian Morgan, the team's head of race engineering, "simply because the equipment was freezing up as we tried to use it. After that we ran a bit of a free practice simulation, but we discovered a small problem, which lost us some time. It was only a minor issue and didn't require major work, but it meant that we had to run a compressed Quali simulation before lunch. Afterwards we got through a whole race distance, which, at the car's first go, is always very encouraging.
"Mark is in the car tomorrow for his race simulation, so we hope we can get through the full programme with him with no dramas," he added.
At Ferrari, Fernando Alonso continued with development and data acquisition relating to the behaviour of the F2012. The Spanish driver got through all the key elements of the planned programme, completing a total of 87 laps. His best time was a 1:23.180.
It was a difficult day for Daniel Ricciardo and Toro Rosso, the Australian failing to complete as many laps as expected because of a couple of stoppages. The last one, a problem with a drive shaft, was to cost the most time.
"The afternoon did not go to plan," admitted Ricciardo, "but the morning was positive and we did all the runs we had planned for the first part of the day. We worked on making adjustments to the car balance, also trying some different mechanical changes to the car, which is why I did mainly short runs. I could feel the effect of these changes and the car reacted in the way we expected."
It was another busy day for Lewis Hamilton, the Englishman completing another 121 laps, following yesterday's 144. The focus for the morning was on data gathering and set-up evaluation before the team carried out a race-distance simulation in the afternoon.
"To have completed more than 1000km in the past two days is incredibly encouraging," said Hamilton, "the whole team should feel proud. The car behaves really well in the high-speed corners - I think the baseline of our car is higher than it was last year - and it's better overall at high-speed. It's performing well in Turns Three and Nine, too.
"We don't know the fuel-loads of the other cars, so it's still hard to determine the pecking order," he admitted. "We didn't bring any upgrades here, but our understanding of the car has developed since the test in Jerez. We're learning more about how the tyres work, how the temperatures behave and how to balance the car using set-up. It's been an extremely productive few days - and I think Jenson will continue to improve the car tomorrow.
"Now, I'm just looking forward to the final test - it's where you get a really good feeling of where the car will be. It's also exciting because it's the last stop before the first race!"
Nico Rosberg was at the wheel of the W03, the German enjoying a productive morning session which allowed the team to make good progress through its planned technical programme. Unfortunately, a transmission oil leak was found early in the afternoon which could not be resolved in time to complete any productive running
"It was good to get into proper testing today," said Rosberg. "Early in the morning, it was a bit too cold on the track to collect some decent information, however later we were able to get into our planned work. In the afternoon session, unfortunately we had a transmission oil leak which meant that I wasn't able to complete any further running. That doesn't affect my positive feelings about our test programme, and things like that can happen in the early stages of running a new car. Now I am looking forward to driving again on Friday."
Due to take part in most of the Friday practice sessions this season, Valtteri Bottas was at the wheel of the Williams-Renault FW34 as the Grove outfit focussed on set-up work and tyre comparisons.
"I really enjoyed today," said the Finn. "It was great to get back in the car as I have been waiting for this day since I took part in the young driver test in Abu Dhabi last year. The FW34 again showed good reliability, as we completed 117 laps while doing some interesting tests with the car set-up. I'm looking forward to assisting the team at race weekends this season and can't wait to drive the car again."
"Valtteri did a good job completing 117 laps without issue," added Mark Gillan, "working on general car set-up with a run plan tailored around familiarising him with a typical Friday P1 race session."
Just days after joining the team, Vitaly Petrov made his debut for Caterham, the Russian completing 69 laps on his way to posting a best time of 1:26.605.
"A very reasonable first day with Vitaly in the car," said Mike Gascoyne. "We spent some time this morning getting him acclimatised, focusing particularly on the brakes, but he has settled in well and did exactly what we asked of him today. We have a few points to work on tonight, one of those being to understand how to give him a setup he feels most comfortable with, so tomorrow we expect to be able to continue to progress when he's back on track for the second day."
"I think that was a pretty positive day," added the Russian. "We completed 69 laps and got through most of what we had planned. This morning we had a couple of issues with the seating position and the brakes, but you expect that from a new car and they were little things that we were able to fix quickly. In the afternoon we put in a few more long runs and that'll give us a lot of data to work on tonight and I think tomorrow it will be more of the same.
"Physically I feel really good," he continued. "It's obviously been a while since I've been in a car, but I've kept up my fitness levels and I enjoyed myself on track, so it's a good first day back. One thing I have noticed is that this car behaves a little differently from my previous experience and I think I may have to adjust my driving style to get the best out of it - I've been quite aggressive before, but I think this car responds better to smoother inputs, so that's something I can work on, and work with the engineers on. Let's see what we can come up with for tomorrow."
Charles Pic continued to make progress on his second day of pre-season testing for Marussia. The Frenchman, who continued with the 2011 car, worked through a variety of set-up changes to provide him with further experience and understanding of the car's behaviour. In the afternoon he completed a further race simulation which means he has completed over three race distances during the course of the two days.
"Another good day for me today with more important mileage," said Pic. "It was a very interesting morning as we tried quite a few set-up changes and it was very good for me to gain this experience. This afternoon we completed two long runs as part of a race simulation to enable us to work on tyre degradation and we made a run with low fuel at the end. The past two days have been good for me and I'm looking forward to being in the car again on Friday."
"Today's programme was centred around set-up work in the morning and further long run work this afternoon," added John Booth. "Charles is getting more and more adept at understanding the behaviour of the car to set-up changes and is working well with his engineers and crew. Tomorrow we look forward to getting Timo back in the car and allowing him to spend some time evaluating the 2012 tyre compounds."
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