01/03/2013
NEWS STORY
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On his final day of pre-season testing, Romain Grosjean topped the timesheets in the Lotus E21 as the mixed weather conditions continue to confuse the pundits.
In the wake of today's session, which was book-ended by rain showers, a number of drivers, including Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button, bemoaned the fact that the unseasonable temperatures are making tyre evaluations meaningless, though conditions are expected to improve for the final two days running.
On his last day of running before Melbourne, Grosjean focussed on system checks, temperature monitoring, data correlation, assessment of the performance of the car with its initial aerodynamic package and new rear suspension set-up evaluation.
"Even though the weather was far from ideal it was a pretty good day for us and it's certainly a better feeling to end the session with the fastest time on the board rather than the slowest!" said the French youngster. "We had strong reliability again today and the E21 feels good in all conditions, which is very promising for the season ahead.
"Of course, I wish I could have more time in the car before the season starts, but if we're in the same position on the monitors when we get to Australia I'll be very happy indeed."
"Today was far more productive than yesterday," added Alan Permane. "We debuted a new rear suspension variation, working on initial set-up in the wet conditions this morning, then switched to dry tyres in the afternoon to gather further data on the medium and soft 2013 compounds.
"Whilst circuit conditions are not as favourable as last week due to the recent rain, we were still able to show good pace and our initial findings from the new rear suspension are promising. Over the next two days we will be working on the updates we have for the E21; there's plenty of work left to do and we're hoping that the forecasts for better weather over the weekend are correct."
The damp track in the morning meant that Jenson Button's early running, like that of his rivals, was limited to aero mapping and mechanical evaluations. As the circuit dried out, he switched to the medium compound and ran through a number of different mechanical set-up iterations to find a good balance for MP4-28.
According to the team the programme was "efficient and productive", with Button going quicker on each subsequent run. By mid-afternoon, the Woking outfit was able to evaluate a number of upgrades over a series of longer runs. While these were interrupted by a late-afternoon red-flag stoppage, Button was still able to log some considerable mileage and incorporate a series of live pitstop simulations into the mix.
"I really don't know who's quick and who isn't," the Englishman subsequently told Sky Sports F1. Referring to the weather, especially the cold, he continued: "Dry weather for two days and circuit temperatures in the twenties, thirties is what we need because I haven't driven in that condition since Jerez.
"All the days I've driven have been freezing cold so it'd be nicer to drive in slightly hotter conditions that are sort of comparable to what we find in Melbourne."
"We can always be confident we can do a good job," he added, "but I need another day in the car. In terms of set-up work, yes, we definitely need another day. Today is really the first time that I've done set-up work that's helped us with the direction, and on such an unusual day in terms of weather, to have a good day is unusual. So I'm happy with the progress we made today but I still feel there's so much more we need to do before the first race.
"On Sunday we need to get a lot of laps done and that's because we need to spend a lot of time on the circuit to understand the car a bit more and also just developing the car. I feel there's so much we haven't done in terms of the general set-up work that you would do with a new car."
Clearly an area of concern, he added: "When we make a set-up change it does take a lot of time. That's normal with a new car but still it's taking a little bit too long.
"It's cost us a lot of time in the garage and it's hurt our comparisons on the circuit. So that's something we need to improve in the next two days."
Due to the weather, and the possibility of dry running at the weekend, Valtteri Bottas was replaced by Pastor Maldonado, the Venezuelan concentrating on tyre testing and aero evaluations.
"We didn't manage to complete our entire programme because of the rain," said Maldonado, "but we still did 75 laps with the track improving towards the end of the afternoon. I had a good feeling in the car but we still have things we can improve. This afternoon we were able to complete some aero evaluations, with particular focus on trying some different front wings. We now have enough data to make some decisions on that, so I'm looking forward to getting some dry running in over the weekend."
"This morning was effected by rain," added a frustrated Mike Coughlan, "but this afternoon we managed to get some running in to start working through our aero evaluation work which we had planned for this test. This afternoon we also did a standard fuel run-out test to check against our data; the results were as expected. We now hope to complete some further dry running as we make our final preparations before Australia."
Like many, Sebastian Vettel's penultimate day of testing was something of a mixed bag with the poor weather causing a few delays to the champion's work in the morning. Once up and running, however, the German got through a busy programme of set-up work and managed to fit in some evaluation of test items. With the drier conditions after lunch, the afternoon was about refining set-up on his way to the day's fourth-fastest time.
"I didn't do that many laps today, but to be honest the weather wasn't great and it was a pretty rough day in terms of the wind," he said. "It's very cold as well. The tyres aren't really working properly and I think everybody is suffering the same problem, struggling to make the tyres last for more than a lap. It's difficult to compare things you are testing and also to compare yourself to others."
"Once again the weather was the main inhibitor today," admitted Andy Damerum, the Milton Keynes outfit's Race Engineering Co-ordinator. "This morning the conditions weren't great, so it was a bit of a slow start for everyone. The track was pretty greasy and because the wind wasn't as severe as yesterday, it stayed pretty damp all morning. That meant a lot of the time we were in that crossover between intermediate and wet tyres, which is tricky. However, in a strange way it actually helped us in the morning as we had some parts we wanted to test and the conditions allowed us to spend the time in the garage getting that sorted to no great detriment to our running.
"In the afternoon we were able to move on to dry tyres, but the wind was quite strong at times and just as with Mark yesterday, that didn't make life easy for Seb. Having said that I think we got quite a lot of work done today, especially in gathering data on the items we wanted to test. The weather is supposed to be much better tomorrow with a balmy 14 degrees forecast, so hopefully Mark will get a smooth run on his last day of testing."
At Sauber, Nico Rosberg used the morning to work on the full wet and intermediate tyres, in the afternoon he was able to gain further experience on how to manage the dry tyres.
"It was a difficult day with changing track conditions, and it was very windy as well," said the German. "This made it very challenging to do precise testing and get perfect results, but I think we made the best out of it and gathered a lot of data which the engineers can now analyse. I'm satisfied with the pace we had in dry conditions, however, we need to do more work on the intermediate tyres, where we have definitely more potential to exploit."
"It was good for Nico to try the intermediate and full wet tyres in the morning," added Tom McCullough, the team's Head of Track Engineering. "Once the track had dried out we got straight into our dry weather test plan, making the most of the reduced track time that the poor weather costs us. We have plenty of data to analyse tonight in preparation for Esteban's final day tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will be kinder to us for the rest of the test."
Back in full-time F1 employment, and showing no sign of 'ring rust' - especially in his neck - Adrian Sutil completed 62 laps as he familiarised himself with the VJM06.
"It was a very interesting day with such a variation in track conditions," said the German, "but it was ideal for me to practice in the sort of conditions we might experience in Australia or Malaysia. I ran the full wets, the intermediates and it was good to discover the crossover point with the slick tyres. I only ran the medium compound dry tyres today, but it was difficult to do too much set-up work because the wind was affecting the aero balance quite a lot. Overall I felt positive today and whenever I went out on track the lap times were competitive."
"Again the wet weather forced us to concentrate on running the full wet and intermediate tyres, which proved valuable for Adrian's knowledge of the tyres," added Chief Race Engineer, Jakob Andreasen. "The weather did improve slightly after lunch, but it remained windy and we ran a limited programme once again. The forecast looks much better for tomorrow and it will be Adrian's final day in the car before we go to Melbourne. The focus will be on long runs, simulating race conditions and pit stops as a dress rehearsal before the season begins."
For Daniel Ricciardo, trying out a new type of Bell helmet, this was his first time running the 2013 rain tyres so it was a valuable experience for him and when the track was dry, the team tried to tick off as many points as possible from the job list. The day ended with some full-kit pit stop practice, which was useful for the crew.
Jean-Eric Vergne is back in the car tomorrow, when the emphasis will shift from testing elements of the new car to work on race weekend simulation.
"Looking on the positive side, the changing weather meant I was able to try the Pirelli rain, intermediate and soft tyres, so that was interesting," said the Australian. "However, the rain did make life tricky for all of us and although we got plenty done today, I'm looking forward to achieving more on my last day on Sunday, when the weather is meant to be much better."
Amidst speculation as to who his 'new' teammate might be, and talk of an evening seat fitting for any number of drivers, Max Chilton spent the morning working on the wet weather set-up work started yesterday. In the afternoon the Russian team was able to switch focus to a dry tyre programme and an evaluation of further components from the new aero upgrade for Melbourne.
"It's been a very productive day today in which we've been able to maximise running in both wet and dry conditions," said Chilton. "The track dried up quite a lot over the lunchtime period and early afternoon, so it's a shame it started to rain again towards the end. By that time we had achieved quite a lot of our programme with the new aero package and the results from that look promising. The forecast for the next two days looks much better so by the time we leave here on Sunday night we should be well-prepared for Melbourne."
"We have made very good progress today despite the changeable conditions," added John Booth, "completing 75 laps and ending the day P8. Further wet running has been useful experience for Max and it is all good information for the Team at the same time. The dry spell was a little longer than we envisaged so we have achieved more of our aero evaluation programme than we expected and it is very pleasing to see that yielding positive results.
"We look forward to continuing in this vein over the next couple of days and on Sunday we'll really have Melbourne in our sights when we have the full race team present for an intensive final day of preparation and pitstop practice."
At Caterham, it was another mixed day for Giedo van der Garde, the Dutchman grinding to a halt between Turns 4 and 5 just fifteen minutes before the end of the session, once again out-paced by the Marussia.
"We knew day two of this test would be another stop/start day with the weather forecast being bad for at least half the day and the forecast wasn't wrong," said the Dutchman. "Despite that we went out early for an installation lap and then ran through more setup work on the wet and intermediate tyres in the morning session.
"The weather cleared up a bit in the afternoon but we had a technical issue that cut into our run plan so we switched from the full race simulation we were going to run to more setup work and tyre evaluation. Unfortunately the rain came back again with half an hour to go, which again meant we had to change the plan but the forecast for the last couple of days is better so hopefully we can get back to the original run plan and finish the tests as we'd planned."
Not for the first time, Mercedes topped the mileage charts with Nico Rosberg completing a total of 120 laps. Whilst the track was wet this morning, he focused on evaluating new parts and set-up on the wet and intermediate tyres. He completed a single run on medium compound tyres before lunch.
In the afternoon, the German completed a race simulation on dry tyres, although the latter stages were disrupted by red flags. He did not complete any shorter runs when the track was dry in the afternoon.
The 559 km completed today, take Rosberg's pre-season mileage to 2030 km (1261 miles), compared to 2040 km (1267 miles) for Lewis Hamilton.
"It was great to run in the wet today which I have not done so far during our pre-season testing programme," said Rosberg. "The car felt good in those conditions and it's important to have had this experience as there is always the chance of rain in Melbourne. This afternoon, we did some race simulation work which was very productive. I am happy with my mileage today as every single lap is important for the learning process, and so overall it was a positive day for me here in Montmelo.
In the morning, Fernando Alonso worked through a packed programme, consisting of aerodynamic tests and assessing some mechanical components, running up to the lunch break on intermediate tyres.
After the break, the Italian team completed its aerodynamic testing and then continued with a second race simulation, using both dry and rain tyres. In the end, Alonso had to return to the garage and halt the simulation because of a red flag.
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