Catalunya F1 test: team reaction after Day 2

Caterham Renault

Heikki Kovalainen: "I’m pleased with how today has gone. I’m still not quite 100% after a bit of food poisoning kept me away from the track yesterday, but I’m pretty much over it and the way today has gone is good news. We keep going in the right direction and seem to have put the little issues that were holding us up behind us and the number of laps we’ve now run means I’m starting to be able to fine tune the setup and find a balance I’m really happy with. There’s still more to come in outright pace and we’ll work more on that tomorrow, but I think we can say this has been another good day for the whole team."

Mike Gascoyne, Caterham Group Chief Technical Officer: "Once again a very productive day. Heikki was running a very similar program to Vitaly’s plan yesterday with tyre evaluation this morning and long runs with high fuel in the afternoon and with 104 laps completed we managed to run through the whole plan. We are clearly making progress and what is particularly encouraging is that we know there is still more to come."

Riad Asmat, Caterham Group Chief Executive Officer: "Another very good day, and signs that we are starting to find out what this car can do. The team have worked very well today and apart from a minor issue this morning we have run faultlessly and have shown pretty good pace, so I think we can be pleased with what we have achieved today."

Toro Rosso Ferrari

Less laps than planned today, because an engine change was required after a failure towards the end of the morning session at 12.40. The engine had nearly completed its planned running cycle.

The track stayed open for business until 5.30 pm today, the extra half hour added at the end to make up for the fact that the start was delayed, when thick fog in the area meant the Safety Helicopter could not take off. At the start of the session, Jean-Eric worked on an aero evaluation programme, while in the final half hour, the team again carried out pit stop practice drills.

The next time our French driver sits in the car will be for Friday free practice in Melbourne. Tomorrow, Daniel Ricciardo takes over at the wheel of the STR7 for the final two days of pre-season testing.

Jean-Eric Vergne: “Of course it is a shame my winter testing ended with a less than satisfactory day, with not so many laps completed. However, yesterday we did a lot of running and the team still has two more days here with Daniel and I believe we can therefore make up for lost time. The day was not a complete wash-out, as we got some useful data in the morning and did yet more pit stop practices this afternoon. Since Jerez, the team and I have worked very hard to get me as ready as possible for the season and now, I’m looking forward to taking part in my first ever Grand Prix when the championship starts in Australia.”

Sauber Ferrari

For the Sauber F1 Team and Kamui Kobayashi today’s focus was on working with the car under race conditions and also comparing aero components in the afternoon. Despite interruptions due to an extraordinary number of red flags in the morning and an hydraulic leak in the late afternoon, it was still a positive day of testing with the Sauber C31-Ferrari.

Giampaolo Dall’Ara (Head of Track Engineering): “With regard to our lap times, we are quite happy with today’s achievements. In terms of running through our programme, we have been a bit unlucky. For us today the red flags always came out at the wrong time. But this is how it goes, and we have also had days when interruptions didn’t do us any harm. However, today it was difficult to find a good rhythm, and then later on we lost more than an hour due to an hydraulic leak. The fact that we had to remove the gear box to fix it was very time consuming. Overall we gained some good experience with the car, and there is still more to be learnt about it.”

Kamui Kobayashi: “I am pretty happy with the car and its handling under race conditions. We wanted to improve compared to the last test, and we clearly did that. Obviously we couldn’t do everything we had on our programme, but I think we can compensate for that. We still have two days of testing left and I’m very much looking forward to being in the car again on Sunday. Of course it is too early to know where we are compared to the others, but the feeling is good.”

For tomorrow, Saturday, Sergio Pérez will be back in the car before Kamui is on duty again on Sunday.

Force India Mercedes

Sahara Force India completed a second day of work in Barcelona as Nico Hulkenberg got behind the wheel of the VJM05.

Nico Hulkenberg: “The day started well with some set-up work and new tyres runs, but we had some downtime in the afternoon, which limited my mileage. It’s a bit frustrating, but we’ve had a pretty good winter so far and it’s nothing to worry about. I’ve got one more day in the car before we travel to Melbourne, so I will try to make the most of it and carry out a full race simulation.”

Jakob Andreasen, Chief Engineer: “It hasn’t been the most straightforward day as we lost most of the afternoon session with a driveline issue. The plan had been to attempt a race distance, so we will need to reschedule this for tomorrow when Paul is back in the car. Fortunately we had a productive morning when Nico carried out some new tyre appraisals of the hard and medium compounds, and we also ran through our race weekend procedures.”

Williams Renault

Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer: Today the team concentrated on practicing our pit stops, completing 68 mostly in- and out-laps to get the drivers and pit crew used to the new equipment and procedures. Pastor’s morning session was compromised with an engine-related problem which, although easy to rectify, took some time to identify. Bruno’s running in the afternoon was trouble free.

Pastor Maldonado: Our focus today was on pitstop practice, which is important to do before we get into a live race situation. Getting a clean, fast pitstop involves a combination of factors from both the team and driver. From my side, I have to position the car correctly in the box, get a good pull away from the stop and make sure I have clean in- and out-laps. We are trying many different things to improve all of these areas.

Bruno Senna: This afternoon was great as we did a lot of practice to understand our pitstop performance as a team. It is very important to practice as you come in at 100kph, the speed you would do on a motorway, and jump into a space just the size of the car. There is a lot of time to be made, and races can be decided by pitstops. I think we’ve really improved our performance today. I’m now looking forward to doing some stops in a race, and to being quick and precise when the pressure is on.

The Williams F1 Team will be back on track tomorrow, Saturday 3 March, with Bruno Senna driving the FW34 for the third day of the test.

McLaren Mercedes

Second day of testing at Barcelona, and Lewis jumped into the car today. When early-morning fog kept the circuit closed, the team continued rehearsing full-race-crew pitstops in the pitlane.

However, the majority of the day was spent making lengthy adjustments to set-up in order to more fully understand the effects of change on the car. This meant the day was centred more around development, and less on headline-making laptimes.

The day also saw the expected conclusion of our evaluation of our launch-spec aero package. For Saturday and Sunday, we plan to introduce a suite of new components for evaluation ahead of the opening race in Australia in a fortnight’s time.

Lewis Hamilton: “Today was all about testing set-up. It was a good day: we learned quite a lot and improved a few things. We didn’t get a lot of mileage, as we had a lot of downtime inbetween changes.

“Our car feels better set-up wise, we still haven’t added the new aero package – so I think we’ll get a better picture of what the car will be like in Australia over the next two days. But I definitely feel like we have a competitive car.

“This year’s winter testing has been way better than last year. I’ve not had any problems, we’ve ironed out a lot of issues and I feel very comfortable. I’m fit and ready for Melbourne.”

Mercedes AMG

Michael Schumacher was at the wheel of the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS F1 W03 today for the second day of the test.

— Michael completed 19 laps this morning, with a late start and red flags, including two caused by the team, interrupting running
— The afternoon session proved more productive as Michael and the team worked through a series of set-up evaluations
— Michael’s lap tally by the end of running, which was extended by 30 minutes due to the morning fog, was 79 laps, equal to 368 km

Nico will be back in the F1 W03 tomorrow for the third day of the test, with Michael concluding the programme on Sunday.

Michael Schumacher: “The start of our day was something of a struggle this morning, partly down to me as well, and it seemed as if the afternoon might start that way also. Fortunately the session turned out well, and we achieved all of the test items that we wanted. So in the end, it was a positive day, but we will only see later how we stand compared to the other teams.”

Ferrari

Second day of testing this week for Scuderia Ferrari and nine other teams at the Catalunya Circuit, on the outskirts of Barcelona.

Fernando Alonso took to the track today. This morning, the Spaniard worked on the set-up of the F2012 and on aerodynamics, while in the afternoon, he did a Grand Prix simulation that was completed without any problems arising. The chequered flag came out half an hour after the usual 5pm finish, as it was decided to extend the session by thirty minutes to make up for the time lost because of fog hanging over the track this morning.

By the end, Fernando had completed 125 laps, the quickest in a time of 1.23.447. The Scuderia continues testing again tomorrow, 3 March, still at the Catalunya Circuit, with Felipe Massa back on track.

Lotus Renault

Lotus F1 Team went fastest and one lap shy of furthest in the second test day of four at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona, Spain today. Romain Grosjean completed a mammoth 124 laps - almost 600 km - including a race distance simulation. He ended the day with a 1min 22.614secs lap - the fastest by over half a second.

Kimi Räikkönen will get behind the wheel for the final two days at Barcelona. Tomorrow he will work on set-up including evaluating a new aero package.

Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1 Team Race Driver: "I’m very happy with the car, and it was great that we could still run strongly at the end of the session, even after a long stint. At the start of the day we suffered slightly with tyre degradation, but we changed a few things and this improved as the day went on. Today was the first race distance I’ve completed in a long time and I’m feeling pretty good. No doubt my neck will be a little sore tomorrow, but the rest of me is fine!"

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: "All in all it’s been a good day. The E20 was once again very reliable, and we completed a lot of laps. Romain wasn’t particularly happy with the car first thing this morning, but we steadily improved it over the day. In the afternoon we completed a full race distance including pit stops. We then went for a couple of setup runs at the end as we had a bit of time left over which was an unexpected surprise. Tyre performance looks good; in particular during the last stint we used a set of hard tyres and managed around 27 laps with very low levels of degradation which is encouraging."

Red Bull Renault

After fog delayed the start of today’s running and the morning session was then interrupted by a number of red flags, Sebastian Vettel commented that the day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya had not been the smoothest, but that despite the delays he believes the team is progressing well in advance of the first race.

Sebastian Vettel: “It was quite a messy day because of the fog and there were quite a lot of red flags out there so it was hard to get into a good rhythm. We had our own stoppage on the circuit, but it was no problem. It’s never nice to stop but we brought the car back and it wasn’t a big problem. We didn’t fulfil the programme entirely but I think we are heading in a good way.

“I have one more day to go and so far testing has gone pretty well. Not perfect of course, it never is, but all in all I feel quite happy in the car. It’s more or less what we expected and hopefully we’ll have another two good days to prepare for the first race.

“The last couple of days of testing are always quite important as you always bring a few new things and it’s much closer to the car you will race in Melbourne, so we’ll see if that works out and hopefully we’ll be able to make another small step forward before the first.”

Sebastian’s Race Engineer, Guillaume Rocquelin: “The fog this morning wasn’t ideal but the circuit was very good in giving everybody an extension and we did get a decent amount of laps in. However, even when the session did get going it was a fairly choppy start as there were a lot of red flags and as Sebastian said it was difficult to find a rhythm.

“But Seb got through most of the programme, which today was just background testing stuff, we weren’t focusing on performance at all. There are a lot of boxes we need to tick to go racing and we got quite a few done today.”