01/03/2016
NEWS STORY
Having continued with its policy of alternating its drivers, Nico Rosberg was on duty for the German team this morning before handing over to teammate Lewis Hamilton.
And while the sport's powers-that-be will have collectively groaned when Rosberg, trying the yellow-banded soft tyres for the first time this year, went quickest, closing to within 0.2s of Sebastian Vettel's best - set last week on the new ultrasofts - those same powers-that-be must have allowed themselves a wry smile when the world champion ground to a halt halfway down the pitlane.
As we wondered whether Mercedes had finally encountered a problem, pondered the thought of the W07 developing an Achilles heel, the issue - whatever it may have been - was quickly rectified and moments later Hamilton was posting his first time of the day.
Indeed, the Briton went on to complete a race simulation, eventually adding a further 90 laps to the 82 Rosberg completed this morning.
Fact is, other than a couple of issues with the wheel-guns during the race-sim pit stops, the W07 ran as faultlessly as ever, which is more than can be said for some of the opposition.
Rio Haryanto was side-lined for much of the morning with an oil leak, and when the hapless Manor driver finally got going, in the moments before the lunchbreak, out came the red flags when Fernando Alonso ground to a halt at the end of the pitlane, the result, it was subsequently discovered, of a "small telemetry glitch".
It was a difficult day for Haas also, a "fuel system issue" bringing Esteban Gutierrez' day to an early close, the Mexican having completed just 23 laps.
Kimi Raikkonen was the cause of another red flag, the Finn stopping at T1 with a gearbox problem, while the final red flag of the day came in the final fifteen minutes of the session, Kevin Magnussen stopping his Renault at T3.
Another driver who lost a lot of track time was Daniil Kvyat, the Russian needing his crew to resort to the fire extinguishers when he returned to the pits with what was thought to be a rear brake fire. However, it is understood the problem was actually the 'cake tin' on the rear brakes.
Valtteri Bottas became the latest driver to try the ultrasoft rubber, posting the second best time in the process, but it was noticeable that when the purple banded tyres go off, they go off very, very quickly.
Despite his telemetry glitch, it wasn't a bad day for Fernando Alonso, the Spaniard finishing third on the timesheets and completing a respectable 93 laps.
With each day, the Toro Rosso, now sporting its new (?!?) livery, looks better and better, and as Max Verstappen reeled off the laps - 144 in total - one wondered if the Faenza team might beat its sister outfit this season, and should that be the case how it will go down with Mr Mateschitz and pals.
Hulkenberg, Nasr and Magnussen each completed over 100 laps, a highly impressive feat, particularly for the Sauber which was making its track debut today.
Nico Rosberg emerged for his first run at 09:00, completing 82 laps before the hour-long lunch break following which Lewis Hamilton completed a further 90 laps in the afternoon.
Today's programme focused on lower fuel running during the morning - including running soft tyres for the first time during the winter - and a race simulation in the afternoon.
"It was a decent morning and we're making progress," said the German. "It was nice for me to be able to push some more and produce some stronger lap times. We were doing qualifying practice this morning - it's important to practise that as well. And that's when it's all the more enjoyable; taking the car to the limit and really pushing. It's been a good test, reliability has been good, the speed has been there - it's all working to plan."
"It was a great afternoon of running with great mileage," added Hamilton. "We did a race simulation and after that I feel I'm ready for race one. The car is feeling great and was consistent all day. It's been a monumental effort from this team to get the car to where it is today. I'm truly grateful to everyone for every bit of work they have put in so far."
{youtube 9odyY29IkKU 560x315}
"It was a good day today," said Bottas. "We managed to run without any major issues with the car. It was very interesting discovering more about the FW38 and what kind of set-ups work for this car. I think we managed to make progress. We did some short runs today which I really enjoyed.
"I still agree with what I said last week," he concluded, "we have improved in the areas where we were weak last year. I am looking forward to tomorrow and continuing testing.
"Today was a very good day for us," added Rod Nelson, the Grove outfit's Chief Test & Support Engineer. "The car ran faultlessly. We did lots of quite significant tests throughout the day as well as a bit of a qualifying simulation. We managed to get through our planned programme without any major problems, so overall we are really pleased."
Fernando Alonso returned to the cockpit for McLaren as the team focussed on bedding in a new power unit, which had been slightly updated from last week's to move closer to the specification scheduled to run in Melbourne. Much of the day's programme concentrated on engine mode and driveability tests, tyre compound assessments as well as aerodynamic set-up changes.
A technical glitch halted running just before the lunch break, when an electronics issue caused the car to lose telemetry data. This was identified and reset over lunch and Alonso returned to the track shortly after 15:00.
Despite some niggles in the afternoon as the new power unit bedded into the chassis, today's run programme was concluded successfully, and the Spaniard completed a total of 93 laps.
"After the disappointment of not being able to complete much running at the end of last week's test, it was positive to get so many laps on the board today," admitted Alonso. "We tested a number of different configurations and spent a lot of time working on the power unit and collecting data from the aerodynamics. It's too early to tell a real difference compared to the engine last week, as we focussed today on shorter runs and adjusting the balance and set-up of the car.
"However, today's full day of running has been a good start to the second test, and has provided us with lots of useful data that we can analyse overnight before Jenson continues the programme tomorrow."
"After a busy and long weekend for the whole team out here at the track, back at MTC and in Sakura, we started the second test off on a positive note," added Director of Engineering, Matt Morris. "It's always encouraging to get some good mileage under our belt on the first day.
"We spent a good chunk of the day evaluating the power unit functionality, although our attention hasn't yet turned to assessing outright performance. The important thing was to get as many miles on this package as possible, so from that point of view and the amount of data we have collected today, it has been very positive.
"We will continue to maximise our track time over the coming days, to work on ironing out reliability niggles and move on to longer runs. We also have some new aero parts arriving overnight, which will be assessed on track tomorrow with Jenson."
"We had an unexpected control electronics shutdown just before lunch time," added Yusuke Hasegawa, Honda R&D Co Ltd Head of F1 Project & Executive Chief Engineer, "believed to be the cause of a software problem. Apart from that, we were able to run a decent amount of laps to finish the first day of the second test in Barcelona.
"On the power unit side, we tested many different modes of running to prepare for the race, so it was a busy day for the system engineers. As a package, we were able to test different balances of the car and tyres together with the power unit.
"We are looking to perform further detailed checks on the power unit during tomorrow's testing."
Raikkonen's day began with aero flow measurements and continued with various set-up tests until the lunch break. In the afternoon, around 15:00, the car stopped on the main straight. A stuck transmission was identified and fixed and the Finn was then able to continue driving.
The medium compound tyre was used throughout the day, including runs on the prototype version supplied by Pirelli, which were identifiable with a white band.
The final hour saw more work on set-up and electrical settings as well as practice starts and pit stops.
"It is normal to have some little issues during testing like we had with the gearbox today," said Raikkonen, "but I am not concerned as we have time to fix it. That's the purpose of testing, learning new things and trying something different.
"We still have something to be done of course but it is a normal process this time of the year. It is a different story when we go racing.
"We will know pretty soon what will happen in Australia but so far the car feels good. I have no idea what the others are doing, lap times may vary with different tyres and fuel levels, but we know what we are doing and we are pretty happy with the way the car is handling. I think we have a very good package, time will tell if it is good enough."
Following a busy weekend of analysis following last week's first outings, Daniil Kvyat got Red Bull's final four days of preparation for Melbourne underway.
Despite a compromised morning session, due to a brake duct issue, the Russian posted a respectable 69 laps on his way to a best time of 1:25.049.
"We had a busy afternoon, which was good," said Kvyat. "We would obviously have liked to have done some more laps, but there is another day left available to me and I'll try to make that as busy as possible. This morning we had a little bit of an issue with the brake ducts and it took a little bit of time to sort it out, but the guys did a good job and for the rest of the day there were absolutely no issues."
"Not a fantastic first day back at the track for us," admitted Head of Race Engineering, Guillaume Rocquelin, "as in the morning we had a brake system issue. It wasn't a major issue - the fault was easy to rectify - but unfortunately there was some damage to one corner of the car and we therefore had to strip the back end, which was quite time consuming.
"When we got out in the afternoon we got stuck into the programme we had set for the day and we had a good second half to the day. Dany also had a run on the soft tyre. There was no suggestion of chasing lap time, but we just wanted to get a little bit more data. In all, not an ideal start to these final days in Barcelona but we'll keep plugging away."
"It was a very good day!" smiled Max Verstappen. "We completed plenty of laps and I think we can be very happy.
"Everything was running smoothly and we were able to go through the whole of our programme, which is always something positive to do. We tested a few parts and it was, all in all, a very productive day. Physically I'm also feeling good and I can't wait to be back in the car on Thursday – that will be my last time at the wheel of the STR11 before heading to Australia!"
"It's been another good day for us," added Chief Engineer, Phil Charles. "We spent the morning characterising some new aero parts. This is another good job from the factory to get those delivered to us in time after the very busy winter we've had.
"The rest of the day was a nice mix of set-up work followed by long-runs in the afternoon. We are spending more time on these, building our understanding of the car.
"There's perhaps still a bit of work to do on the tyres, but all in all we've learned quite a lot and the reliability has been a real positive for today, adding a further 144 laps to the team's tally."
Force India resumed its programme with Nico Hulkenberg clocking up 121 laps with a best time of 1:25.336.
"It was a good day and we were able to get through a big testing plan," said the German. "We had quite a few different objectives and specific items we wanted to look at, so to be able to do all that was a positive.
"We continue to build our understanding of the VJM09 and we explore ways to adapt to its behaviour: it's the usual learning process that takes place when you have a new car and you start developing it for the season. In the afternoon we were able to complete some long runs which were useful to learn about the way the tyres work."
"Another routine day of testing with ideal weather conditions for this time of year," added Chief Race Engineer, Tom McCullough. "The car ran reliably throughout the day and we covered 121 laps.
"We dedicated the early morning running to aero data correlation and fitted various test sensors to the VJM09. We then moved on to general set-up work and focussed on long run performance and further understanding of the 2016 tyres.
"Although the temperatures we see in these winter tests are not especially representative, it still gives us a reasonable idea of what we can expect from the early races. We need to analyse most of the tyre data tonight so that we can continue with the programme tomorrow with Sergio."
All in all, it was a good day for Sauber, a day which began with the roll-out of the new C35, then continued on to system checks and data collection.
Felipe Nasr completed 103 laps on his way to posting the ninth best time of the day.
"It was a productive roll-out day with more than 100 laps," said the Brazilian. "As usual on the first day of testing with the new car, we focussed on several installation and system checks, on set-up changes and, of course, on data collection. It was an extensive programme, on medium and soft tyres, from which we obtained interesting data to look into. For the following test days there is still a lot of work to do."
{youtube 6wA4fe4csZQ 560x315}
For Renault, Kevin Magnussen completed 119 laps with a best lap time of 1:25.760, as the team worked on aero assessments, set-up work, reliability and installation validation.
"It was another strong day with lots of laps completed," said the Dane. "There's a positive feeling with this car but equally we know where we need to make improvements and that's what we're working towards. It's great to be able to get so much mileage for myself and the team as we can really make good progress."
"A pretty good day for us with the car running reliably and completing 119 laps," added Chassis Technical Director, Nick Chester. "We were able to work on both front and rear suspension set up as well as aero data logging which will give us further direction for the remainder of the test. All of today's programme has been completed so there is a satisfying amount of data to process ahead of tomorrow."
Rio Haryanto worked his way through a condensed programme in the afternoon after losing most of the morning session to an oil leak. He managed 45 laps in the MRT05 as the Banbury team gave chassis 02 its first outing.
"This afternoon has been really positive," said the youngster, "so that has made up for the track time we lost this morning to an oil leak. That's what testing is for though so I'm happy that we quickly identified and got on top of the problem. We managed 43 laps this afternoon and as well as the core programme I worked through some controls procedures including practice starts. Pre-season testing is short so every lap counts but with one more day in the car to focus on race simulation and qualifying preparation, my confidence with the car and team is improving all the time."
"We encountered our first significant testing glitch this morning when an oil leak disrupted our programme," admitted Racing Director, Dave Ryan. "The leak itself was pretty straightforward to deal with but the source was difficult to reach and that's where we lost the time.
"Once fixed, we turned the car around quite quickly and managed to get Rio back out for a lap before the break to make sure we were on top of the problem for the afternoon. Rio responded well to the challenge of playing catch-up and his calm and focused approach contributed to a very smooth rest of day.
"Although we lost some valuable mileage, we're in a good place for the start of this week's test."
Esteban Gutierrez was held to just 23 laps due to a fuel system issue. He recorded a best lap of 1:26.661 during his third run of the morning session but sat out the afternoon session as the team worked to rectify the problem with its fuel system.
"It wasn't an ideal day as we had some technical issues which we're still investigating," said the Mexican. "We wanted to do a lot of running and had setup work planned. However, we're working on our solutions and focusing on the next few days so we can get our program completed. Tomorrow is another day. The team is working hard to solve the issues and I'm confident we will. Hopefully, we can have a smoother day tomorrow."
"Unfortunately in the morning we experienced some problems with the fuel system," confirmed Team Principal, Guenther Steiner. "We tried to fix it but we were unable to and had to stop running just before the lunch break.
"We will not be able to run again until tomorrow, so a little bit of a setback. But what makes you suffer makes you stronger. We take a step back, but we hope to make two forward tomorrow."
Check out our gallery, here.