Catalunya, day 3: Alonso fastest at Barcelona

Fernando Alonso bowed out of the first of two pre-season tests in Barcelona with the fastest time of a day that saw Adrian Sutil return to F1 action for the first time since 2011.

Alonso will hand the Ferrari F138 over to Felipe Massa for the final day of this week’s test tomorrow but signed off in style with a lap time of 1:21.875 set on soft tyres in the morning.

“Today we concentrated on a comparison of the compounds, starting with the soft and moving on to the hard in the afternoon,” he said. “We tried various aerodynamic configurations and for the first time, we made some set-up changes to get a good understanding of tyre behaviour and degradation.

"Once again this year, the tyres will be one of the crucial aspects to manage: they are softer and quicker, but also less consistent and they degrade rapidly with every lap. We will have a lot of work to do to understand how best to balance the car, but that applies to all the teams.”

Sutil meanwhile was making his first appearance in a Formula One car since the Brazilian Grand Prix of 2011. The German is in a head-to-head battle for the second seat at Force India with Ferrari academy driver Jules Bianchi, who impressed in Jerez recently.

The German finished the day with the eighth-fastest time, a lap of 1:22.877 and afterwards said he had done all he could to prove his worth.

“I’ve done everything I can do to get my comeback, now it’s up to [Force India] to decide,” he said. “They know me better than any other team here. I spent six years with the team and they know my performance. I think it was obvious today that I can show I am still quick. For me the most important thing was to deliver a performance – I have done my part. I can sleep without any worries.”

Bianchi will have another chance to show his skills tomorrow, but with wet weather forecast, he may not be able to deliver as he wishes.

Elsewhere, Nico Hulkenberg gave Sauber something to smile about with the day’s second quickest time, just three tenths slower than Alonso. Romain Grosjean, taking over from Kimi Raikkonen at the wheel of the Lotus E21, was third after completing 119 laps. The team also got through a full race simulation, with none of the software troubles that had hampered the Finn’s running during the first two days.

“I think I’m ready for a sleep after so many laps in the car,” Grosjean said afterwards. “It’s good to see reliability today to add to the pace we’ve already seen in the car. It was difficult out on track as temperatures were so low, but we’ve gained a lot of useful data. The 2013 tyres certainly feel different from last year’s but already we’re starting to understand them.”

Nico Rosberg was fourth with a time of 1:22.627, while the Williams duo of Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas finished fifth and sixth respectively, the pair sharing time at the wheel of the FW35 to rack up the day’s biggest lap total for a car with 147 tours completed.

McLaren’s Jenson Button was seventh, setting his best time on the hard tyre. The Woking squad spent a long period in the garage over lunch making changes and didn’t return to the fray until 3pm, after which Button focused on long runs.

With Sutil eighth, P9 went to Mark Webber, who spent the morning working on test items and then got through the bulk of a race distance in the afternoon, only missing out on the full amount of planned laps due to a late red flag for Giedo van der Garde’s stranded Caterham.

The Dutch driver finished at the foot of the timesheet, behind Mac Chilton in the Marussia and 10th-placed Jean-Eric Vergne in the Toro Rosso STR8.

Toro Rosso Ferrari

The STR8 completed its highest number of laps so far here in Barcelona, as Jean-Eric Vergne stepped into the cockpit for the first time this week. The job list included a continuation of the set-up evaluation on the car, as well as running the Soft Pirelli tyres for the first time at this track. Therefore the main theme of the day was to work out the most appropriate set-up options on the car to match the different compounds. The car ran reliably again today and the aim was to pack in as much work as possible, as it is expected to rain tomorrow for the final day. If the track is wet, then having a first look at the rain tyres, which have also changed for this year, will be a useful exercise and the team will also start looking at race procedures such as pit stop drills.

Jean-Eric Vergne: “We did a solid day’s work on a track that is definitely more demanding than Jerez and that gives you a better picture of what your car can do. We did a really good job with a lot of laps, so I am very happy about that. Everything we test seems to give us more tools to work with, for when the time comes to start looking for the best set-up and balance and getting performance out of the car. I’d say the car shows excellent potential, which we will begin to exploit at the next test.”

Vergne continues to drive the STR8 tomorrow, for the final day of the test.

Sauber Ferrari

Nico started the day testing aerodynamic components. He then tried the soft tyres for the first time on this track and set the second best time of the day. In the afternoon he mainly concentrated on long-runs with high fuel loads. He covered 91 laps.

Tom McCullough, Head of Track Engineering: "Overall it was a very productive day, which is particularly important as the forecast suggests rain is likely tomorrow. As in previous days, we have used the initial running for data gathering of new aerodynamic parts while the temperatures were low. For the first time at this test we used the soft Pirelli tyre, which performs well for the first timed lap. The high tyre degradation makes testing difficult, but that is the same for everyone and we have to adapt to it. Nico and the engineers continued to make good progress with the car set-up and he will now hand the car back to Esteban for the final day of the test.”

Nico Hülkenberg: "It was a positive day. We got a lot of testing done with just minor problems. I ran the soft tyres in the morning here in Barcelona for the first time to get a feeling for those, which was interesting. The car is performing pretty well, and I‘m as happy as I can be."

Tomorrow, Esteban will be back at the wheel of the C32 for the final day.

McLaren Mercedes

The first three hours of the day were spent focusing on mechanical set-up work and the evaluation of tyres.

The team then elected to carry out some larger mechanical changes over the lunchbreak, meaning Jenson Button didn’t return to the track until 3pm. Thereafter, he focused on longer runs with a number of simulated pitstops.

The team plans to conduct more aero work tomorrow if the weather stays fine. However, with rain forecast for the whole day, our plans may change and we could well end up running Pirelli’s 2013 wet-weather compounds for the first time.

Lotus Renault

Romain Grosjean completed the first full race simulation for the E21 during the course of an uninterrupted and trouble free day’s running at Barcelona.

The Frenchman completed a total of 119 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya; more than any other team today. During the course of set-up work in the morning, Romain also set the day’s third fastest time.

Romain will take the wheel of E21 chassis 02 for the final day of this week’s test tomorrow.

Romain Grosjean: “I think I’m ready for a sleep after so many laps in the car! It’s good to see reliability today to add to the pace we’ve already seen in the car. We’re still at an early stage of development so it’s really promising to see where we are. It was difficult out on track as temperatures were so low, but we’ve gained a lot of useful data. The 2013 tyres certainly feel different from last year’s but already we’re starting to understand them. I hope it’s dry tomorrow so we can get some more laps under our belt.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “From our perspective it was a perfect day. We ticked off every item on the checklist and even had time to spare at the end of the session. That’s your target when you start a day’s testing but it’s seldom achieved, and after a couple of difficult days, it’s all the more satisfying. We completed a race distance simulation without any red flags or other stoppages, and that has helped us learn a lot more about Pirelli’s latest tyres. In the cold temperatures here, the tyres do look very difficult to manage, especially with high fuel loads in the car. However, as our ‘race’ progressed so tyre performance stabilised and we completed a 20-plus lap stint with consistent lap times. We still have plenty of work to do with set-up but we’re certainly making steps in the right direction.”

Williams Renault

Mike Coughlan, Technical Director: It’s been a very good day for us. We’ve completed two race simulations and both drivers were happy with their individual programmes. We’re really pleased with the reliability we have shown this week, having completed 147 laps with the FW35 today, 331 laps in total so far this week. We feel we have got a good car to now start developing and we look forward to continuing tomorrow.

Pastor Maldonado: It was a good morning for me. The track was still very cold when we did our first run on new tyres, but the time still looked competitive. We then moved into a race simulation and our race pace looks consistent. We completed our full programme without issue which is positive. The FW35 feels very comfortable to drive so I’m feeling happy.

Valtteri Bottas: We started the afternoon with some shorter runs but we still haven’t seen the full potential of the FW35. I have been able to improve some things in my driving since yesterday, but there are still things I can work on compared to Pastor. We then completed a race simulation. Unfortunately it was cut a little short due to the red flag at the end, but we were still able to try all the tyre compounds and I was able to get a good feeling for how the tyres behave. Overall, the car feels really nice on the longer runs, which is promising.

The Williams F1 Team will be back on track tomorrow, Friday 22 February, with Valtteri Bottas driving in the morning session and Pastor Maldonado driving the afternoon session for the final day of the test.

Red Bull Renault

Mark Webber took over from Sebastian Vettel at the wheel of the RB9 in Barcelona today and was able to get through 108 laps and almost 497km of running.

Mark Webber: “We had a pretty good run today, we’re learning plenty, so a positive outing for us. Overall the car ran smoothly and once again we amassed a huge amount of data for the guys back at the factory to go through. We’d like to get a bit more mileage tomorrow in the dry, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, it looks like it will be wet.

“As usual at tests, the question of the pecking order comes up all the time but, honestly, I have no idea. There are a few quick cars out there, but in winter testing it’s so hard to say if anyone’s better than anyone else, especially with the tyres going off the way they are – you’re losing four or five seconds over the course of a stint, so figuring out who’s doing what is pretty difficult. All we can do is keep pushing, keep developing and keep our eyes fixed on the first race.”

Race Engineering Co-ordinator Andy Damerum commented: “After the small problems we had yesterday, we had a very satisfying day. The car was reliable throughout and we got through the full programme. We concentrated on test items in the morning and then obviously, looking at the times, got through some long runs in the afternoon during which we tried to get as much information as possible on the tyres. It’s a tricky business because it was pretty cold today but that’s the nature of the beast here. We don’t often get temperatures like this during the season but it can happen at places like the Nürburgring. Silverstone and Spa, so all the information is valuable. As for tomorrow, well, the weather forecast looks pretty bad, so we’ll see just have to see what greets us in the morning and go from there”.

Mercedes

Nico Rosberg completed his fourth day of pre-season testing this afternoon at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya, running a total of 108 laps in cold but dry conditions. His pre-season mileage now stands at 1471 km.

— The morning programme focused on data gathering and set-up adjustments
— This afternoon, Nico concentrated on longer runs with the hard and medium tyres
— Nico ran soft, medium and hard compound tyres during the day’s programme
— His fastest lap of 1:22.611 was completed on the medium tyre on lap one of a seven-lap run

Lewis Hamilton will complete the fourth and final day of this week’s test programme tomorrow.

Nico Rosberg: We didn’t have a perfect morning and it was tough out there with the low temperatures. They were causing a lot of tyre graining, which made it difficult to do much useful testing. It was a few degrees warmer after the break and that gave a completely different picture. In general, I’m pleased with what we’ve achieved this week – I did a lot of mileage and the team has done a good job over the winter. I feel more comfortable in the car and the balance is quite good, but we still need to work in a number of areas. That’s why I’m looking forward to testing next week and to see what progress we can make.

Ferrari

Third day of testing for Scuderia Ferrari at the Catalunya circuit, on the outskirts of Barcelona, and Fernando Alonso’s last day at the wheel of the F138. The Spaniard will be back on track here next week for the final pre-season test session.

The team’s work programme was completed without any problems and it included set-up work aimed at adapting to the Soft tyres, which Fernando was trying for the first time this year and the Hards. Fernando covered a total of 97 laps, the quickest in a time of 1.21.875.

Fernando Alonso: “Today we concentrated on a comparison of the compounds, starting with the Soft and moving on to the Hard in the afternoon. The track was colder than yesterday, especially in the morning, which made it harder to adapt the car and find the right grip level. We tried various aerodynamic configurations and for the first time, we made some set-up changes to get a good understanding of tyre behaviour and degradation. With every change we made, the car reacted as I expected and it was useful to try out the different settings, especially to understand which direction we need to go in next week, when there will be a greater emphasis on performance. Once again this year, the tyres will be one of the crucial aspects to manage: they are softer and quicker, but also less consistent and they degrade rapidly with every lap. We will have a lot of work to do to understand how best to balance the car, but that applies to all the teams.”

Testing continues tomorrow at this circuit, when Felipe Massa will be on track.

Caterham Renault

Giedo van der Garde: “We’ve had a pretty productive day and completing 93 laps meant we were able to run through the whole plan we’d set out for today. We had a technical issue in the afternoon which meant we were running without KERS for the whole session after lunch but despite that we were still able to try a number of different setups that give us more to work on tomorrow and several options to work through at the next test. One area we are focusing on is improving the rear stability of the car. It definitely has a sharper front end than the 2012 car but we need to take a more detailed look at that tonight and, assuming the rain stays away tomorrow, we can keep working on that on day four of this test.”

Marussia Cosworth

Day Three of the Barcelona Test saw Max Chilton back in the MR02 for the Marussia F1 Team today, for a continuation of the set-up and aero evaluation programme which began late yesterday.

The cool weather is hampering progress so the mornings are given over to systems and procedures work while the track conditions improve, therefore Max was only able to begin the performance programme after lunch. A planned suspension change delayed the start of the afternoon’s running but once he was out on track, Max was able to achieve some longer runs than he has been getting for the past two days. A red flag towards the end of the session frustrated the performance window for all of the teams.

Given the stop-start nature of the running, it has made sense to keep Max in the car for consistency and he will therefore continue into tomorrow, a day where the weather is likely to intervene in proceedings.

Max Chilton: “It’s been good to be able to pick up from where I left off yesterday. As we’ve had such a stop-start programme it’s important to try to find a rhythm when we can, to ensure the engineers are getting some consistent feedback on this aero before we move to the new configuration next week. Once again, it’s been the case that much of the benefit will have been felt behind the scenes rather than on the timesheets, especially as we had a red flag at the end of the session when we were hoping to explore more of the outright performance. Having said that, it’s good that we still find ourselves ahead of the Caterham again.”

John Booth, Team Principal, Marussia F1 Team: “Another good day’s work in which we’ve been able to steadily step through a busy checklist of testing items. This afternoon was our chance to explore the car’s performance a little more and though we are pleased with our position relative to Caterham, we would have liked more laps to keep pushing in that direction. The delayed start to our afternoon due to a planned suspension change and a frustrating red flag towards the end of the session meant that our window of opportunity was abbreviated rather more than we would have liked. Max has done a great job over the last three days and we’ve certainly benefited from the consistency this has provided.”

Force India Mercedes

Sahara Force India continued testing in Barcelona as Adrian Sutil spent a day helping the team with its winter test programme. Jules Bianchi will be in the car for the final day of running tomorrow.

Adrian Sutil: “It was a good day and nice to be back in a Formula One car once again. We started off by doing some aero work this morning when the track was quite cold and green. Later on we moved to some performance work and tyre testing, and feeling all the different Pirelli compounds was something quite new for me. It’s been almost a year and a half since I last drove, but I found that I was able to get back up to speed quickly and set some good times before lunch. In the afternoon we did some long runs and also introduced the hard compound tyre, which feels quite different to the soft and mediums.”

Jakob Andreasen, Chief Race Engineer: “It has been a long time since Adrian last worked with the team, but he did an excellent job of getting used to the car and was on the pace straight away. His feedback was good and it was interesting to hear the thoughts of a driver who has not been in a Formula One car for a while. He was very detailed with his comments and provided some good direction for us. The programme was similar to the previous couple of days with aero work, long runs and performance work using the hard, medium and soft tyres. For tomorrow the weather forecast is looking uncertain, but we will design our technical programme to be ready for every eventuality.”