04/02/2015
NEWS STORY
Ferrari resurgence appears to be no flash in the pan as Kimi Raikkonen and Sauber's Marcus Ericsson top the timesheets at Jerez.
While the day began on a damp track following overnight rain, it soon dried out and by the afternoon conditions, though still a little cool, were almost perfect. Consequently, the eight drivers on duty were able to complete 655 laps between them.
Once again, the Ferrari SF15-T never missed a beat, and in the process of adding another 106 laps to the team's tally Raikkonen posted the fastest time of the week, while teammate Sebastian Vettel's 1:20.984 drops him to second.
To further compound the Maranello manufacturer's pace and reliability, Marcus Ericsson, in the Ferrari-powered Sauber ended the day second quickest, teammate Felipe Nasr having been quickest yesterday.
The frustration of Caterham must seem a lifetime ago for Ericsson, the Swede putting in a solid performance today. Bookending the session perfectly, he posted the first time of the day then brought the session to an early close when he ran out of petrol and brought out the red flags with less than ten minutes remaining.
Mercedes is hardly on its back foot however. On his way to posting the third best time of the day, Lewis Hamilton completed another 116 laps, bringing the Brackley outfit's total for the four days to over 500.
There was a minor scare when the Briton spun just over two hours into the session following a technical failure, causing the second red flag of the day. However, he was soon on his way again.
Whilst it was another quiet, steady day for Williams, which had Felipe Massa on duty, Max Verstappen and Toro Rosso continue to impress.
After a strong start to the day, Romain Grosjean, making his debut in the Lotus E23 was side-lined in the afternoon with a power unit problem. "An early bath for us after 53 laps today," said the Enstone outfit.
"The data suggested something was amiss with the power unit," it added. "A productive first test nevertheless."
The fact that said power unit is a Mercedes will have been noted elsewhere along the pitlane.
It was another difficult day for Daniil Kvyat and Red Bull. Stopping on track just a few laps into the session, thereby causing the first red flag of the day, the team subsequently traced the problem to an ERS issue. After three-and-a-half hours work by the Enstone crew the Russian was back on track, adding a further 55 laps to the 8 completed before the failure.
Once again, McLaren suffered a roller-coaster ride. After a couple of minor issues which saw the MP4-30 grind to a halt, once as it left its garage, another time at the end of the pitlane, Jenson Button finally began to string some laps together.
However, around ninety minutes before the end of the session the team reported a fuel pump problem. Although confident that it would get him out again, the Woking outfit eventually admitted defeat and revealed it would follow Lotus' example and take an early bath.
Of course, it's early days, but based on the last four days Mercedes could have a serious fight on its hands this season. While there remain the usual questions in terms of fuel loads and sandbagging, there is no escaping the pace and reliability of the Ferrari or indeed its similarly-powered rival from over the Alps.
Whilst Williams has yet to truly show its hand, the early signs are that Toro Rosso is much improved, even if its sister team is struggling.
With two weeks before the cars fire up in Barcelona, you can rest assured that the teams will be working flat-out and burning the midnight oil as they analyse the lessons learned this week.
"Over the winter, we have made a good step forward and this car is definitely an improvement over the 2014 one," said Raikkonen, who spent the day working on tyre evaluation and set-up work. "It's the whole package that has progressed, but there is still a lot of work to do. We are not comparing ourselves to the others, we just got on with our own job, without looking at what they were doing.
"Times are of relatively little importance," he continued, "what matters is that we have put together a good number of laps without having any real problems. Today's conditions were not that easy, with too strong a wind blowing on track, but then it's the same for everyone. As I said, we now have a good basis from which to start the development work."
"When you bring a new car to the track, you're always excited and worried and that is mixed with a profound hope that all the hard work of so many people will be rewarded with performance," admitted James Allison. "We leave this test without having all our expectations met, simply because we would have liked to have done even more mileage and because you always want to be faster. However, having said that, given how it went, overall we can be pleased, because we have had a solid start. Now, we are keen to push on with the development work in Barcelona, so as to be ready for the first race in Melbourne."
"If one makes a comparison to last year, these past few days of testing have produced encouraging signs," smiled team boss Maurizio Arrivabene. "The team has worked well, both at home and at the track and our drivers did a great job, providing the engineers with valuable feedback. But above all, I am pleased that the group has rediscovered its motivation and team spirit.
"In terms of performance, I don't think our competitors – one in particular – have shown their true potential over these past days," he added. "I think we will only discover the truth about them and about ourselves at the last Barcelona test session. Now, my attention turns to Paris, where tomorrow's meeting will decide the future of our sport."
At Sauber, Ericsson completed 112 laps, mainly concentrating on aero scans and race preparation. Towards the end of the session he did a fuel run-out, and, as a result, had to stop out on the track. During the course of the four day test, the team was able to get 382 laps (1691 km) under its belt and collected a lot of valuable data for the next test in Barcelona.
"It was another good day for us with more than 100 laps completed," said Ericsson. "It's been a great first week of testing for the whole team, and I would like to thank everybody for the work done. We collected a lot of good information. It was interesting for me because I drove the car on days one and four, and it was obvious that we were able to make some progress in between. Felipe and the team did a good job, so when I jumped in the car again I was able to immediately notice the progress, which is encouraging. I think we have a good basis which we can now build on."
"It was another productive day for the team," added Giampaolo Dall'Ara, Head of Track Engineering. "We concentrated on some academic measurements, which took quite a lot of patience from Marcus' side, because he had to drive out and in, again and again. Overall the four day test was definitely very positive. There were hardly any reliability issues on the car, and definitely nothing major. The drivers and the team worked very well, and it was good to get to know each other. We will now analyse all the data in order to make further progress in Barcelona."
Mercedes programme for the final day comprised long runs and practice pit stops. Hamilton emerged for his first run at precisely 09:00, completing 44 laps before lunch and a further 73 after. The W06 remained parked over lunch as the crew investigated a cooling problem, before returning to the track for the afternoon.
"It's been pretty amazing this week to see how reliable the car has been and how much mileage we've covered," said Hamilton. "The team here at the track and back at the factories is so enthusiastic and energized which is great to see. We all loved the experience of last year and everyone wants to do it again. This is where you prove out the car - looking for as many laps as you can, not searching for fast times. It's been really positive from that perspective and every day here the car has got better as we learn more about it.
"Everyone will keep bringing upgrades through pre-season, so the cars will develop and they will improve and that then carries on through the first race. I can't really say much about the performance of the car yet but it doesn't feel any worse than last year's, which is a good sign. I'm fit and ready to go - 117 laps today felt fairly easy - so I'm already looking forward to getting back to it in Barcelona."
It was another productive one for Toro Rosso, where Max Verstappen was at the wheel. The Dutch youngster completed 97 laps on his way to posting the fourth best time of the day.
"My second day in the car went well," he said. "We completed a large number of laps and, in terms of speed, I can't complain. The most important thing about these four days is that the car was generally reliable, so I could get plenty of track time, which was important also from the physical point of view for me. Clearly my winter training paid off."
"We have had four profitable days testing, during which both our drivers managed to complete a high mileage," added Franz Tost. "That meant we were able to learn a lot about our car. Generally, it ran reliably, with the only issues we encountered being small ones and we are confident we can iron them out before the next test in Barcelona.
"The whole team worked very hard and I thank them all for the great effort and the team spirit. The two drivers also did a very good job, producing a strong performance, building up speed over the entire test. If the team and drivers can keep this momentum going in the remaining two tests, then we will be very well prepared by the time we get to the first race of the season in Melbourne."
"It was good to run the STR10 in anger and after overcoming some niggling problems on the first two days, we managed to do some really high mileage on the final two," said James Key, the Faenza outfit's Technical Director. "That was useful, because it meant both our drivers managed to complete a full and comprehensive programme.
"Our focus has been entirely on reliability, while allowing the drivers to experience every aspect of the job. We haven't done any work on performance so far and we will not do that until the end of the month, therefore we are not looking at our lap times for now. The important topics are reliability, consistency and driver work, to tune the car to their requirements and give them as much preparation time as possible.
"The car was ready on time thanks to really excellent work from all the staff in the factory and the wind tunnel and we had no major issues with car assembly. Everyone at the track worked very well to ensure the test ran smoothly. Well done to the drivers, who made no mistakes, gave us very precise feedback, learned a great deal and also allowed us to discover quite a bit about the tyres and the car. A good start and we must continue like this in the next tests."
"Today was another trouble-free day," said Rod Nelson, Chief Test & Support Engineer at Williams where Felipe Massa continued with aero work, systems and reliability checks, "so we completed our programme for the week. Today's focus was on aero and mechanical set-up, as well as working through systems reliability. We have highlighted areas we need to improve before Barcelona and leave here with a reliable package that is straight forward to work with. I think we are all very happy."
"The FW37 once again proved how reliable it was with an error free day," added Massa. "The car has been consistent over the last four days and we have made good progress. We have highlighted certain areas that need work and so will make sure the car is improving every time we take to the track. We have our feet on the ground and are focused on making this car quicker when testing continues in Barcelona."
At Lotus, Romain Grosjean, getting his first taste of the E23, completed 53 laps as the team continued with its installation and functionality checks as well as initial performance assessments. The Enstone outfit stopped running early after power unit running data showed that a problem was developing.
"My first impressions of the E23 Hybrid are good," said Grosjean. "Both the Power Unit and the chassis are going in the right direction. I completed over fifty laps today and I can honestly say that all of them were enjoyable to drive. The team has made very good progress if you consider where we were this time last year. It's a very good start and I'm a happy driver."
"Even though it's been an early end to our final day of running, we've made fantastic progress over the past few days," added technical director, Nick Chester. "We fired up the E23 Hybrid for the first time at Enstone last Saturday night, ran it for the first time on Monday, then completed a very useful haul of laps over the course of the test.
"Both Romain and Pastor have declared themselves happy with the car and we have a clear direction for future developments. Today we finished early as analysis of Power Unit running data suggested a problem was developing.
"The Power Unit will now return to Brixworth for a full investigation. We have a busy week ahead of us at Enstone to make further progress with the E23 and we're particularly looking forward to the next test in Barcelona."
An issue with the RB11's Energy Recovery System soon after the start of the session saw Daniil Kvyat restricted to the garage until shortly before lunchtime but once back on track the car ran without fault for the rest of the session.
"We had an issue this morning but we managed to overcome that and we had a clean run in the afternoon, so I'm really happy to have got a lot of laps under my belt today," said Kvyat. "All in all, I think it was a very productive day, with a lot of positives. I think we know where we are and where we want to be for the next test in Barcelona. We've made good progress this week and hopefully there's more to come."
"A slightly frustrating morning for us, with an ERS problem," admitted Head of Race Engineering, Guillaume Rocquelin. "It cost us a few hours, but to be honest the track was a bit greasy again this morning so we probably didn't lose too much meaningful running. Once we'd sorted the issue the car ran perfectly all afternoon and we were able to get through the key elements of the programme we had mapped out.
"This week has all been about establishing reliability and while we've had a few niggles the car is pretty much where we want it to be. We focused on medium and long runs all week and Dany was able to do more of that work this afternoon. We did lose track time over the four days and that's always frustrating, as you inevitably have to scratch some things off the 'to do' list, but the major items were covered so I would say we're leaving Jerez in pretty decent shape."
Despite a number of frustrating issues, McLaren still managed a number of long runs today, and was able to incorporate a compressed programme of aerodynamic testing into the day.
After the installation lap, Button had a small oil-level problem, which side-lined the car for an hour; in the afternoon, the team ended the day early after encountering an issue that was initially attributed to a fuel-pump. It was later discovered to be a fuel-related spark/ignition issue - the precise cause of which McLaren has yet to pinpoint, and so chose to end the day's running in order to fully analyse it.
"Despite not completing the mileage we'd hoped for at the start of the week, we still leave Jerez with a sizeable amount of useful data," said the team, "and are satisfied that MP4-30 is performing much as we expected. Operationally, the crews from McLaren and Honda have also developed their trackside integration, and we'll take that momentum into the next test - at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, on February 19-22."
"Unfortunately, we've had a few issues this week," said Matt Morris, McLaren-Honda engineering director, "all of which have been pretty small - but cumulatively they meant we were stuck in the garage for quite some time. Still, our prime objective coming away from this test was to ascertain that the main car architecture worked, and we've done that. One of the great benefits we've had in designing this car is the amount of work we've been able to undertake in close collaboration with Honda - particularly in terms of packaging.
"In tandem with that, we've really been helped by Mobil 1 - they designed a bespoke engine oil for us that's been optimised around the Honda power unit. That meant we were really able to push the limit on packaging and installation because we've had the confidence of knowing the cooling limits of the rear end, and the transmission. The result is a beautifully packaged piece of kit, and it's an area around which we'll continue to push development throughout the season."
"Today, we had a couple of stoppages, but we were still able to get on with our aero programme - obtaining correlation data for the guys back at the factory, just so we can check that everything's working as we expected.
"Additionally, Jenson's been able to give Honda some really good feedback - he's been constantly providing analysis after every run. That's to be expected: it's a new power unit, so there's a lot of information that being sent back to Japan and Honda are constantly upgrading the car. We head to Barcelona hopeful of further refining and developing the package."
"Looking back at the first four days of testing, I'm both happy and relieved that we've been able to get the car here and watch it run on the track," added Yasuhisa Arai
Honda R&D senior managing officer and chief officer of motorsport. "It's a new car and a new power unit, so a huge undertaking for many people in both Sakura and Woking. I'm proud of all their efforts.
"Of course, we'd anticipated there would be issues - this is a test, after all - but the difficulties we faced here were more than we'd expected, so we weren't able to get the running time we'd ideally wanted. Nonetheless, Fernando and Jenson's feedback has been positive and comprehensive - they've given us some very good information.
"There's now an incredible amount of positivity within the organisation. We'll return to the track in Barcelona - with some modifications - and will be stronger at the next two tests.
"I'm extremely pleased to see Honda back where it belongs - in Formula 1."
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