Catalunya F1 test: team reaction after Day 3

Caterham Renault

Vitaly Petrov - 1.26.448 - P10 (70 laps): “We spent quite a bit more time today looking at various areas of the car to help me find a setup I’m really comfortable with and can push on from. Once we’d sorted out this morning’s issue we were able to try a few different setup options in the afternoon and by the last couple of runs I think we were heading in the right direction, both mechanically and with the different tyre compounds.”

Steve Nielsen, Sporting Director: “That was a bit of a difficult day where we struggled to give Vitaly the sort of setup he wants. He did a good job today to drive around a couple of basic issues we knew we would encounter, but those will be solved with new parts that are coming for the next test, and they should not affect Heikki tomorrow. We have saved a number of tyres up for tomorrow and that means we can run through the whole tyre program we had set for the last day of this test which means we should leave here with a better understanding of how the 2012 compounds behave and decent amount of data we can use to prepare for next week’s test.”

Riad Asmat, Caterham Group Chief Executive Officer: “This was one of the tougher days we have had this winter, but we will learn a good deal from today. This morning we had a front suspension problem that we worked hard to fix and the solution meant we were able to lap consistently this afternoon. That sets us up better for tomorrow when Heikki’s back in the car and we are catching up with the plan for this week, so more hard work tonight and a clear day tomorrow and we should be able to achieve the targets for this test when the session ends tomorrow.”

Mercedes AMG

Michael Schumacher was back in the car today for the penultimate day of this week’s test for the F1 W03 car.

— Michael completed 127 laps and 592 km, taking the team’s total mileage for the F1 W03 to 1756 km
— Michael ran soft and hard compound Pirelli tyres throughout the day as he worked through the planned test programme
— A first full race simulation for the F1 W03 was completed during the afternoon session, including live pit stops
Nico Rosberg will conclude the team’s test programme for this week tomorrow.

Michael Schumacher - 1.23.384 - P2 (127 laps): “I’m very happy with the race simulation that we ran this afternoon. It confirmed what we have seen from the first tests with our new car, and that we don’t seem to have any big issues with reliability. The small things from the last two days I would rate as typical testing issues. So from my side, I am happy with our first full testing session, and we have definitely improved our game which is what we wanted to achieve. To what extent, we can only see later, but I am finishing with a positive feeling.”

Ferrari

Third day of testing for Scuderia Ferrari at the Catalunya Circuit, near Barcelona. Felipe Massa

continued with the work of car development and data acquisition relating to the behaviour of the F2012, which team-mate Fernando Alonso had begun a couple of days ago. The Brazilian driver got through all the key elements of the planned programme, completing a total of 84 laps, (nearly all of them on the Pirelli P Zero Hard tyres), the fastest in a time of 1.24.771. At the end of the session, Felipe carried out a fuel scavenge test and stopped at the end of the pit lane.

The Scuderia continues testing at this circuit tomorrow, with Felipe Massa once again behind the wheel.

Sauber Ferrari

Kamui Kobayashi was back at the wheel of the Sauber C31-Ferrari today. It was a straightforward test day – no noteworthy problems but a programme that excites engineers rather than fans. Kamui did set-up and aero work, including a comparison between two different rear wings. Ninety nine laps produced a lot of recorded data and information to now go through.

Giampaolo Dall’Ara (Head of Track Engineering): “We have had a straightforward test day. Kamui did almost a hundred laps. His programme was mainly about improving and confirming what we understand about the car. For example we were looking for improvements in the front tyre warm-up, evaluating different aero parts and ran different suspension configurations. The programme required a lot of five to ten lap runs. It was a productive day for Kamui and the team. Tomorrow’s test programme tends to become a bit more exciting, and that is also for the outside world.”

Kamui Kobayashi - 1.23.582 - P3 (99 laps): “It was my first day of driving the new car here in Barcelona, and it was a good one. We had no noteworthy problems all day and went through a lot of test items. I can feel we have made some progress compared to the test in Jerez. But, of course, we have a lot more work to do and there is room for improvement.”

Kamui Kobayashi will continue driving on Friday, the final day of this test.

Toro Rosso Ferrari

Jean-Eric Vergne took over driving duties for the last two days of this test and he had a trouble free day. The programme was a mix of set-up evaluation and working in race conditions, as it was our first test of the year with the full race team carrying out the pit stop practice. This was important as it is an area where we want to improve for the coming season. With higher temperatures than at the Jerez test and the past two days in Barcelona, conditions were approaching those encountered during the season, which provided useful data regarding tyre management and car cooling.

Jean-Eric Vergne - 1.24.433 - P5 (78 laps): “It’s good to be back in the car after Jerez. We got through a lot of work today, including some aero evaluation and different set-ups. We ran all day long on the Medium tyres, which gives us a good baseline to analyse the data. We are learning more about our new car with every lap and it has performed well on this Barcelona track which is always a true test of how a car is performing. Towards the end of the day, I had my first experience of proper Formula 1 pit stops. It was a scary feeling at the beginning, coming in at 100 km/h and seeing so many people. At first, I was worried about hitting someone, but by the end I had got used to it. It’s an exciting experience!”

McLaren Mercedes

Jenson’s first day in the cockpit at Barcelona very much mirrored the programme completed by Lewis yesterday. Jenson and the team spent the morning exploring variations in set-up over a number of shorter runs and then moved on to a full race-distance simulation in the afternoon.

Jenson Button - 1.23.918 - P4 (114 laps): “We’ve done a lot of reliability work over the past three days – more than 100 laps on each day. Most of that has been longer runs, getting used to the feeling of the car over a long-run and set-up work for the longer runs.

“We’ve also been really working hard to understand this year’s Pirelli tyres and getting the car to work efficiently around them. That’s a key part of the programme this winter.

“There are a lot of cars out there that look competitive: so we’ll keep pushing. We should hopefully bring our upgrade package to the next test and that will see us through to the first race in Melbourne.”

Jenson concludes the four-day test tomorrow.

Force India Mercedes

Paul Di Resta returned to the cockpit of the VJM05 today as Sahara Force India completed a third day of work in Barcelona.

Paul Di Resta - 1.25.646 - P8 (83 laps): “Quite an intense day and a very busy afternoon, but the main thing is that we achieved the objectives for the day. There will be a lot of analysing tonight to see what we can learn, especially trying to understand the data from the long runs this afternoon. Once we’ve been through the numbers, it should give us a direction for tomorrow. As I said in Jerez, it’s nice to have a car with such a good baseline because it makes it easier to experiment with the set-up and that’s what we’re trying to do at the moment.”

Jakob Andreasen, Chief Engineer: “After the install lap we went straight into the aero programme with some sweeps around the front of the car. We lost some time with a bodywork issue late in the morning, but the afternoon proved more productive and we made up for the time we lost with a revised programme. We ran with the hard and medium compound tyres and completed the short and long runs we had planned, whilst also making numerous changes to the mechanical and aero balance of the car. It was an excellent effort from the team at the track to come away with all the long run data we needed and that has set us up nicely for our final day of work tomorrow.”

Red Bull Renault

Today it was Mark Webber’s turn to try his hand at a full race simulation in the RB8. After starting his programme, the car developed a fault which interrupted the morning, but after lunch Mark went into a full race simulation and managed the full distance without further problem.

Mark Webber - 1.24.771 - P7 (97 laps): “All in all, it wasn’t a bad day at all. Not the smoothest of morning’s and we didn’t get too many laps done there, but in the afternoon the race simulation went OK. We’re still learning plenty.

“It would have been nice to have done a few more laps, but I think everyone always wants to get 20 or 30 more and, even with the problem this morning, there were loads of positives to look at. We’re a very ambitious team, so we’ll keep working on that.”

Head of Race Engineering Ian Morgan: “Mark only got a handful of laps in before we had a problem with the gearbox. But whereas it didn’t set us back too much yesterday, today needed more time.

“Mark then went out for his race simulation this afternoon a bit cold, but he managed to put a whole race distance on and the gearbox ran flawlessly. We stopped a couple of laps earlier than planned because we saw something in the data, but in the end it was nothing. So, while we had a limited morning, the afternoon was a pretty good recovery.

“These two days of race simulations have been valuable too in that we’ve got some good information on the tyres.”

Marussia Cosworth

Marussia F1 Team’s Timo Glock was in the hot seat at the Circuit de Catalunya today to begin his on-track preparations for the 2012 season.

Taking over the 2011 MVR-02 from Charles Pic for the day, he ran through a detailed programme of tyre evaluation work, putting the full spectrum of Pirelli P-Zero compounds through their paces over short and long runs.

The car’s excellent reliability was underlined for a third consecutive day as Timo completed 108 laps in total to end the day 9th out of the 10 runners, maximising his one-day programme here this week.

Timo Glock - 1.26.173 - P9 (108 laps): “It’s good to be back on track again after the long winter break and to start our preparations for the new season. Although we are still using the old car it has been really useful to work through the tyre evaluation programme and have the team working together again trackside. I’m looking forward to driving the new car now.”

John Booth, Team Principal: “It’s great to see Timo back in the car and in such fine form. It is clear he has been working very hard over the extended winter break and I don’t think I’ve seen him quite as prepared as this. We’ve achieved some good results today evaluating all the specifications of tyres, which will give us good background information going into the season. Timo also completed some tyre-specific set-up work which will feed into the new car programme. Overall another rewarding day of testing.”

Williams Renault

Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer: It has been a very pleasing day with Pastor successfully completing his whole run plan, covering 106 trouble-free laps. We started with some aerodynamic correlation runs, followed by race weekend preparation and set-up optimisation. In the background, we also ran some bodywork cooling sweeps throughout the day.

Pastor Maldonado - 1.22.391 - P1 (106 laps): It was a good day today, as we completed all of our planned programme with no issues. We have put more mileage on the car which is great for everyone here and back at the factory as we now have a lot more data to analyse. The car is progressing well and I feel everything is going in the right direction.
The Williams F1 Team will be back on track tomorrow, Friday 24 February, with Pastor Maldonado continuing in the FW34 for the final day of the test.