Barcelona II, day 4: Team and driver quotes

Team quotes

By Franck Drui

1 March 2015 - 18:28
Barcelona II, day 4: Team and driver

Williams Mercedes

Rod Nelson, Chief Test & Support Engineer: Today’s programme was similar to yesterday, as we try to get the drivers in the best position before heading to Australia. Due to this the focus was more on performance with a mixture of long and short runs rather than just reliability work. Both drivers have worked extremely hard throughout the test and the entire team have worked very well together. We are really looking forward to Melbourne.

Valtteri Bottas: It was a really good day and a great way to finish the test. One of the main points we have learnt is that the FW37 is very reliable. The car we are taking to Melbourne is very competitive and should make for an interesting start to the season. We have made the most out of our time testing and I need to say a really big thanks to the team, not only trackside but also everyone back at the factory as they have produced a really quick and reliable car.

Lotus Mercedes

Lotus F1 Team ended the final day of pre-season testing early after a systems issue compromised Pastor Maldonado’s braking into turn four resulting in him making contact with the barriers. Pastor had previously completed 36 laps, mainly of aero and comparison work. With the E23 Hybrid requiring a reasonable amount of rectification work for the damage sustained to the front wing and front suspension, the team opted to end the day’s running early. Pastor’s best time from the morning assessment was 1min 28.272secs.

The team will next be seen in action at the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne’s Albert Park Circuit on March 13-15.

Pastor Maldonado:

“It was a shame to end the day early, but that was the only issue we’ve had like this during testing so we can look to the positive that we have a lot of information to take the car in the right direction. My braking was compromised coming into turn four, meaning I went off the track and hit the barriers. I was able to brake and slow, just not as much as the maximum otherwise possible. The car was not too badly damaged and I am fine, but it’s a shame we had this issue as we would have been looking at running the softer tyres in the afternoon and putting in some fast laps. I’m looking forward to getting back in the car in Melbourne as I think we have good potential this season.”

Nick Chester, Technical Director:

“Certainly ending the final pre-season test in the barriers was not part of our game plan, but overall we’ve had a productive two weeks here in Barcelona following on from our initial outing in Jerez. Pastor was unfortunate to have a braking-related issue which meant he wasn’t able to slow sufficiently into turn four and the car was damaged. There was nothing Pastor or any driver could have done to avoid this accident which was systems related and we’re investigating thoroughly to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We now have a quick turn-around to get the car back to Enstone, then shipped out to Australia at the end of the week. It was a pity we weren’t able to run any low fuel laps later in the day. We are looking forward to Melbourne."

McLaren Honda

The curtain closes on McLaren-Honda’s pre-season preparations. It was a slow start to the morning, but Jenson managed to put some laps on the board during the day. While our test programme has been largely affected by unreliability, and by a lack of running, there’s plenty of optimism that the performance foundations for the partnership are strong, and that development will continue strongly – especially during the early part of the season.

Eric Boullier, McLaren-Honda racing director

“Looking back at the last four weeks, our winter test programme has been difficult. However, that wasn’t entirely unexpected: this time last year, we saw many teams in a similar situation when they introduced new power units for the first time. This year, we also had the added complexity that very tight packaging brings.

“In overview, the lack of mileage means we won’t be as ready as we’d have liked, but we can take away the positive that all the running and data gathering we’ve done have confirmed that we’re achieving the targets we set ourselves.

“Even if it’s likely to be a difficult start to the season, we know we can develop hard and fast, and that we’ll surely unlock the huge potential that lies within the McLaren-Honda MP4-30.”

Sauber Ferrari

The final day of pre-season testing went well again for the Sauber F1 Team with Felipe Nasr driving the Sauber C34-Ferrari. In total the Brazilian completed 159 laps. Today the focus was once more on race preparation with short and long runs. During the winter tests in Jerez and Barcelona, the Sauber C34-Ferrari completed an overall mileage of 5708 km, which is the second highest done by any of the teams. The Sauber F1 Team is satisfied with the final preparations before the season opener in Melbourne.

Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering:

“Today we had a positive end to an overall satisfactory pre-season campaign.
Once more the focus of the team was on race preparation, with Felipe working on refinement of the set-up on short and long runs and evaluating tyre compounds.
The team gathered some more useful data and practiced race-relevant operations.
In the three pre-season tests, the Sauber F1 Team covered the whole of the planned mileage and was able to sign off the entire test list. The Sauber C34-Ferrari ran reliably and the weather was kind to us. The pairing of Marcus and Felipe developed into a solid working relationship. All involved at the track and back at the factory worked relentlessly on a tight schedule, and we are now looking forward to the season opener in less than two weeks’ time.”

Felipe Nasr:

“It was another very good day. I am very happy that we did not have any issues on the car. I ran 159 laps, which is quite pleasing for the team and also for myself. The car is reliable, so we were able to collect a lot of data. Today we went through many procedures to be well-prepared for the first race weekend in Melbourne, including short runs, race simulation, practice starts and pitstops. Now I cannot wait for Melbourne.”

What comes next:

The Sauber F1 Team will have a short stopover at the factory before heading to the opener of the 2015 FIA Formula One Championship season in Melbourne from the 13th to 15th of March.

Toro Rosso Renault

Franz Tost (Team Principal)

“This was the last test session in Barcelona and we were lucky with the good weather conditions, which is always important. The performance of the car is promising, as the new upgrades are working well and I’d like to thank all the engineers in Faenza and Bicester for the great job they’ve done. I also want to thank the production department, as all the parts arrived on time.

“We arrived in Jerez exactly a month ago with two rookies and we leave Barcelona tonight with two young drivers who are ready to make their Formula 1 debut. They have definitely grown as drivers in a very short time, showing a good learning curve as well as growing in confidence as the days have gone by. Pre-season testing has been a crucial part of the year for us to prepare the car, drivers and team for the season ahead. We’ve completed a total of 5536 km – which is already more than the total we covered last year, including the in-season tests – showing good reliability and performance.

“Of course we still have some work to do back at the factory and a lot of valuable data to go through before we fly to Australia, but all in all we achieved our goals. We are all very much looking forward to the start of the season in Melbourne.”

James Key (Technical Director)

“Twelve days of very intensive winter testing have gone by very quickly. The team has done a great job, because the mileage we have put together with our partners at Renault has been excellent, covering more kilometres in these four tests than we did in all testing opportunities last year.”

“We began with our car in “Launch spec” just to get miles under our belt, allowing our drivers to settle in. Then we brought what we consider the race car to test 3 in Barcelona and it has performed exactly as we had expected in terms of the numbers we were seeing in the wind tunnel and from the chassis. Is it enough? We must wait until Melbourne to have an answer, but so far we are happy and the drivers’ feedback has been positive. The staff in the factory and in the wind tunnel worked very hard to produce effectively two different cars in a matter of months.”

“With two new drivers, we put them through a massive programme, aimed at giving them as much track time as possible, going through all the procedures that need to be well rehearsed for Melbourne. They have both done a competent job and we are encouraged by their attitude and approach. Now it’s time to put everything together and go racing.”

Max Verstappen

“Today, we didn’t do as many laps as we wanted, but overall, I have had a very good winter test season, completing a lot of laps. Today, the team did a very good job to get me back out on track. I learned a lot about the car, in terms of set-up and I could see in which areas I can improve. In two weeks’ time, we will be racing in Melbourne. I can’t wait and I believe we have a good package. Together with the team I have learned a lot over these three tests and I feel ready to go racing.”

Mercedes

MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS wrapped up the third and final pre-season test of 2015 today at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with Nico Rosberg at the wheel of the F1 W06 Hybrid.

 Today’s schedule consisted of setup evaluation work
 Nico emerged for his first run at precisely 09:00 CET, completing 70 laps before lunch and a further 78 after the lunch break
 Mercedes-Benz Power Units today completed a total of 1,876 km
 MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS completed a total of 378 laps (2,066 km) of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya over the four day test
 The team will now return to Brackley to prepare for the first Race of 2015 in Melbourne, Australia, in two weeks time

Nico Rosberg

Today was a good day and, overall, that was a very interesting test here in Barcelona. We made some mechanical set up changes on the car which was very interesting to me. I also did a long run at the end today on the soft tyres which was okay. In Melbourne we will have the soft tyre and it will be a challenge to manage them well, so we need to look at that. After this test, though, we can be happy. The team did a fantastic job. Thanks to everybody, who was involved in the development of the car. We are very optimistic. Now, I look forward to flying to Australia and getting back to racing.

Ferrari

Sebastian Vettel: “The positive thing is that, once again, we have done a lot of kilometres and gathered useful information. The fact that our race simulation went more or less as planned is encouraging from a reliability point of view, although this is an aspect where we can still improve. From a performance point of view, it’s clear that Mercedes is still ahead by quite a way, but right behind there is us, Williams and Red Bull, all very close. We will know more in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile we must move forward one step at a time, looking above all at what we are doing ourselves”.

James Allison: “The day did not run as smooth as yesterday but, in spite of this, we managed to score plenty of laps on our board, successfully completing a race distance, so that now we have two of them under our belt prior to Melbourne. We leave the winter testing pretty happy with the way the car is performing, the way the test has been done and the way the team is operating”.

Red Bull Renault

Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s 2015 winter testing programme came to an end today with Daniel Ricciardo completing 72 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya. The final day in Barcelona began positively, but just over an hour into the session, Daniel stopped at the end of the pit lane. After investigation, an ERS issue was diagnosed and the team spent the morning rectifying the problem. Daniel returned to the track in the afternoon and completed both long and short runs after which he claimed the day’s fifth fastest time. With a successful test programme now complete, the team’s attention turns to the first race of the 2015 season, in Melbourne in two weeks’ time.

“We had an ERS problem in the morning but in the end we more or less did what we needed to do today,” said Daniel. “We did a bit on lower fuel and soft tyres plus some longer runs. In terms of the pecking order, which is obviously what everyone wants to talk about, it’s hard to say where anyone is at. Aside from one team, I’d say it’s pretty close after that, but we’ll see in Melbourne. I think there’s more to come from us. Personally, I feel really ready to race now and I think we’ll be good come Melbourne.”

Head of Race Engineering Guillaume Rocquelin added: “It was a bit of compressed programme today because of the electrical problem we had this morning. It’s a problem we’ve had before and one we are on top of, but it just takes time to fix, so that ruled us out for the rest of the morning. We crunched things down a bit in the afternoon and got in some short runs and long runs, so it was a useful day. In terms of the winter programme overall, I’d have to mark it down as a success, if only for the reason that we did about three times the mileage as this time last year! Overall, it’s been very good. We spent the time focusing on what we need to do and not chasing lap time, because at the end of the day what you want to achieve is the development of a set of tools you can use through the season and that will help take you forward. We’ve done that. The balance of the car is good, the consistency is there, we’ve built in good reliability and the drivers are happy and I’m pleased with how things have gone. There’s more to come in the next while but I think we’re in decent shape for the first race.”

Force India Mercedes

Winter testing came to an end with another productive day for Sahara Force India. Sergio Perez completed his first miles in the VJM08, clocking 130 laps at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona.

Sergio Perez

“My first day in the car has been a good one, with a very high number of laps and a good atmosphere in the team. It’s no secret that we have some catch-up to do but I am optimistic: the team has a clear direction to work towards and we have been able to collect a large amount of data in such a short time, which will help all those working back at base. Every run we do, here or at the races, teaches us a lot and moves us closer to where we want to be. Now we must focus on Melbourne: I am really excited about going racing again, the first race of the season is always a special one and one to which you really look forward since the end of the previous season."

Tom McCullough, Chief Race Engineer

"Our pre-season testing comes to an end with a solid 130 laps. Today was Sergio’s first day in the VJM08 and, as he got accustomed to the new car, we continued our work of understanding its behaviour, trying various setups in both performance and long runs. All we have done in these tests in Barcelona will help us prepare for Melbourne, and even though we may arrive with less mileage than others, we have gathered lots of valuable data. We are making rapid progress with the car and we have a lot of material to analyse back at the factory ahead of the first flyaways. This last week’s work highlights the spirit of this team: credit must go to everyone involved with the design, manufacturing and assembly of the car. It has been a massive effort from everyone in the team and to get so many laps is testament to the great work done by all."

Pos.DriverTeamTimeLaps
1 Valtteri Bottas Williams Mercedes FW37 1.23.063 89
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari SF15-T 1.23.469 129
3 Felipe Nasr Sauber Ferrari C34 1.24.023 159
4 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso Renault STR10 1.24.527 85
5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Renault RB11 1.24.638 71
6 Sergio Pérez Force India Mercedes VJM08 1.25.113 130
7 Nico Rosberg Mercedes AMG W06 1.25.186 148
8 Jenson Button McLaren Honda MP4-30 1.25.327 30
9 Pastor Maldonado Lotus Mercedes E23 1.28.272 36

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