Jenson Button tops opening day of Jerez test

Jenson Button recovered from problems with his McLaren MP4-28 in the morning to set the day’s fastest time as the first test ahead of the 2013 Formula One season got underway in Jerez.

The 2009 champion had completed just three laps when he stopped with a fuel-pump problem, which sidelined him for the rest of the morning. In the afternoon, however, he recovered to set a table-topping time of 1:18.861 on Pirelli’s new hard compound tyre.

There were no such reliability issues for Red Mark Webber. The Australian completed 73 laps at the wheel of the new RB9 and afterwards said the day’s work had felt like a normal Friday practice session at a grand prix.

“As Adrian said at the launch there haven’t been big changes to the regulations this year and this car is an evolution of the car we finished with last season, so really, there were no big surprises today,” he said. “It was actually like a normal Friday practice session in some regards. No dramas, we did some good laps, we started understanding the tyres – so a lot of positives.”

The team’s Race Engineering Co-Ordinator Andy Damerum added that the session was a big improvement from the same time last year. “If I recall, this time last year we couldn’t run in the morning because of fog, so this first day with the RB9 has been good. We had very few problems and Mark managed to get through just over 323km of running. We were able to get through about 90 per cent of what was on the list for today.”

Third-placed Romain Grosjean was quickest in the morning but the Frenchman encountered several problems during the day, with his new Lotus E21 stuck in the garage for longer than expected. The delays meant his early efforts were comfortably eclipsed by those of Webber and Button later in the day. Like Webber, though, Grosjean was left with the impression of picking up where Lotus left off in Brazil last year.

“It feels very similar to the E20 from behind the wheel, even if it does look different from the outside,” he said. “We spent a little bit more time than ideal in the garage today, but that’s normal in testing. We now have a good idea of the new tyres and we’ll have some challenges from them; the grip level is there but performance does fall away with graining.”

While Button and Grosjean suffered temporary frustrations with their new cars, Nico Rosberg’s car problems proved terminal. The German had completed just 11 laps in his new Mercedes W04 when an electrical problem caused him to stop and a small fire broke out at the back of the car, a blaze the team blamed on unburned fuel in the exhausts igniting.

McLaren Mercedes

Jenson took the wheel for the first track run of the new MP4-28.

The morning’s running was compromised by a mechanical fuel-pump issue, which cost a couple of hours’ track-time, but the problem was quickly rectified and the team was able to run productively for the remainder of the afternoon.

Jenson spent the first part of the day’s programme running a lower-lip rake to complete some aero mapping work. The end of the day saw the team evaluate the effects of a series of mechanical set-up changes, using both the Supersoft and Hard Pirelli tyres.

Both the aero mapping and the balance changes fell in line with the team’s pre-test expectations. Jenson set his fastest time of the day on the Hard compound.

Sergio Perez gets his first opportunity to drive a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes car tomorrow (Wednesday). The knock-on effects of this morning’s fuel-pump issue mean that he will begin his day by continuing today’s initial aero and balance checks.

The aim for tomorrow afternoon is to conduct a series of longer runs – possibly incorporating live pitstops into the mix if the team is satisfied with the day’s initial progress.

Red Bull Renault

Just 48 hours after Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s RB9 was unveiled in Milton Keynes UK, the new car took to the track at the Jerez Circuit in Spain today, at the first pre-season test of 2013.

With Mark Webber at the wheel, the RB9 completed 73 laps. Mark’s best lap of 1:19.70 was the second quickest time of the day and left the Australian greatly encouraged ahead of his seventh season with the team.

Mark Webber: "It was pretty good. As Adrian said at the launch, there haven’t been big changes to the regulations this year and the car is an evolution of the one we finished with last season, so there were no big surprises. I think most of the drivers will sit back tonight and think today’s times were pretty competitive.

“It was actually like a Friday practice session in some regards. We started understanding the tyres and there were a lot of positives,” he added. “There’s a bit of housekeeping we have to get on top of but, other than that, it’s been encouraging. The car feels similar to last year’s, so the main difference is the tyres. With these tyres you’re always on your toes. It was good that we had consistent temperatures today, so we got a lot of information and feedback to analyse, which is all good. Generally though, the car feels pretty good, so I’m happy.”

Commenting on the first day’s work with RB9, Engineering Co-ordinator Andy Damerum said: “We had a very good day’s running today. Being the first day of testing there’s always a few nerves when the car goes out, but we had very few problems and Mark managed to get through just over 323km of running. We were able to get through about 90% of what was on the list for today. If I recall, this time last year we couldn’t run in the morning because of fog, so this first day with the RB9 has been good. Tomorrow, we’ll just crack on with the work load, which means more aero work and getting to know the tyres more.”

Ferrari

First day of testing in 2013 for Scuderia Ferrari, as the F138 made its debut with Felipe Massa at the wheel.

The entire day was given over almost entirely to acquiring data relating to the behaviour of the new car: Felipe completed a total of 64 laps, the quickest in a time of 1.20.536.

Testing continues at this circuit tomorrow, again with the Brazilian driving.

Mercedes

Nico Rosberg began the first pre-season test for MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS today, following the launch of the team’s new car and a filming day in Jerez yesterday.

— Nico completed three runs this morning before an electrical problem caused the car to stop on track
— Unburnt fuel in the exhausts subsequently ignited but did not cause any serious damage
— Further investigation identified that the fault originated in a wiring loom
— The necessary modifications are now taking place ready for tomorrow

Lewis Hamilton is due to drive on Wednesday for his first day of track testing with the team.

Nico Rosberg: At the start of winter testing, you often encounter small issues because the car you’re running is a brand new design. We had an electrical problem this morning and, once we had found the root cause, chose to modify the parts to make sure it didn’t happen again. Of course, at this time of year all you want to do is spend time in the car and get a feeling for how it’s working, but these hiccups are just part of the game. During the laps I completed this morning, I had a good feeling with the car and it felt solid.

Lotus Renault

Lotus F1 Team’s 2013 car, the E21, took to the track for the first time with race driver Romain Grosjean at the wheel under bright blue skies in Jerez, Spain.

Romain was the fastest man on track for much of the day, ending the afternoon with the third quickest time. 54 laps were completed as the team went through its first day programme of shakedown and assessment.

Romain will complete his E21 running at Jerez tomorrow, before handing the car over to team-mate Kimi Räikkönen for the Thursday and Friday sessions.

Romain Grosjean: “The feeling is good from the E21; it feels very similar to the E20 from behind the wheel, even if it does look different from the outside. Once again Enstone has produced a car that is quick from the very first lap. We spent a little bit more time than ideal in the garage today, but that’s normal in testing. I’m happy we completed 54 laps, and even happier that all of them were quick. We now have a good idea of the new tyres and we’ll have some challenges from them; the grip level is there but performance does fall away with graining. That said, Jerez is a very specific track in this regard. The speed came easy today and we didn’t respond to the other cars going faster in the afternoon. We should go even better tomorrow.”

James Allison, Technical Director: “It’s great to see the fruits of our labours take to the track for the first time here in Jerez. Everything has looked positive so far. The feedback from Romain has been encouraging and on the engineering side there have been no particular dramas of note. Overall it was a promising first day for this car and we hope to continue in this vein for the next days of testing.”

Caterham Renault

Giedo van der Garde: "First it’s great to be back at work and I’m pleased with how day one on track has gone. We completed a very decent number of laps today without any major issues and I was pretty comfortable in the car straight away.

"Day one is all about making sure everything in the car works as it’s supposed to and apart from a couple of minor issues with the floor we didn’t really have to make any changes to the car straight out of the box. We also ran through a number of procedures that are new to me, particularly starts as we didn’t do too many of those last year, but the main thing for me is the tyres. They definitely feel different to what I ran in the Friday sessions I did in 2012 and that’s going to be a focus for us in the tests, to get as much as we can out of them.

"It’s obviously far too early to make any judgements on the performance levels we can expect from the 2013 package but compared to the car I drove in Brazil it feels like we’ve made some good progress over the winter. Tomorrow will be more of the same for us - running through more procedures and a few set-up options across the range of tyres we have available here and hopefully getting in as many laps as possible."

Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal: "I’m happy with what we have achieved today. We began day one of the test by revealing the 2013 car with its new livery and I’m very pleased with the reaction we’ve had from around the world to the updated car. It’s always a risk changing something people feel as passionately as they do about F1 car liveries but we’ve had some very good responses to it and seeing it out on track proves that we made the right decision.

"Performance-wise it’s too early to tell where we’re going to line up this season. We’re realistic enough to know that it will take a big effort to fight the teams ahead, but we are patient and we’ve set ourselves achievable targets for the year ahead. One of the keys to helping us reach those goals will be maximum track time in the tests so we have to aim for another three days of clear running and see what we’ve learnt when we get back to the factory.

"All in all it’s been a good day and another bonus for us is to see how well Charles and Giedo have slotted into the team. This bodes well for the year ahead and it’s great to see our driver pairing fitting in so well in the very early stages of the season."

Force India Mercedes

Sahara Force India was back in action today as Paul Di Resta completed a busy first day of testing in the VJM06 in Jerez, Spain. Paul completed 89 laps with a best time of 1:20.343 to finish fourth on the timesheets.

Paul Di Resta: “A positive first day and we managed to cover lots of laps – so that’s the most important thing. I felt very comfortable all day and we managed to get through the programme as we focussed on collecting aero data and understanding how well the car correlates with our simulation tools at the factory. We also started trying to learn as much about the tyres as possible so that we can carry that into tomorrow and optimise the set-up. The new compounds are quite different with the new construction and I’ve already felt a difference with the balance of the car in the low and high speed parts of the lap.”

Jakob Andreasen, Chief Race Engineer: “As first days go, we are pretty satisfied with how things went today. From the install lap onwards we managed to keep to the programme, even with the disruptions for the red flags. In the morning we focused on aero data collection before moving to baseline set-up work just before lunch. For the afternoon Paul completed some longer runs as we started to get an understanding for the 2013 tyres, especially the medium compound, and how they perform. All the while we made good progress with our system checks and we are in good shape ahead of tomorrow.”

Williams Renault

Mike Coughlan, Technical Director: Jerez is a unique circuit that we don’t race on during the season and it provides the perfect opportunity to do some final test and development work ahead of the FW35 launch. Today was a good day for us with Pastor completing 84 laps in the FW34. We concentrated on running some new systems in preparation for the FW35, as well as some planned set-up changes. We would be reluctant to do these over a normal race weekend as you lose too much track time making the changes, so it was ideal for us to get these into our programme today. It was also interesting to see the new Pirelli tyres in action and having the FW34 here helped us to really understand how the tyres are working.

Pastor Maldonado: We had no problems today and the car felt very consistent so we were able to learn a lot, which will be useful for the FW35 development. We planned to run the FW34 to enable us to have a reliable car to test the new tyres with and also try some different set-ups. It’s great to finally be back on track after what felt like a long winter and I’m confident we can achieve a lot this week.

The Williams F1 Team will be back on track tomorrow, Wednesday 6 February, with Pastor Maldonado continuing in the FW34 for the second day of the test.

Toro Rosso Ferrari

After the wraps came off our new car in the pit lane here yesterday, Daniel Ricciardo gave the STR8 its official track debut this morning, driving out of the garage just a couple of minutes after the green light came on to indicate that the 2013 F1 season was open for business. After the usual installation laps, the team began tackling the day’s programme which centred on checking all the car systems, without looking at performance. Inevitably however, the engineers could not resist looking at the aero numbers for the new car! STR8 ran reliably, completing 70 laps. Daniel continues to drive tomorrow, before Jean-Eric Vergne takes over for the final two days.

Daniel Ricciardo: “It’s good to be back behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car. It was a long day to complete 70 laps, however, the main thing is that the car was reliable, which is a positive aspect and we got through our work schedule for the day. You cannot look at car performance on the first day, when reliability and comfort are more important and, on that front, my seat and driving position were good. So this was a day of tasks that were relatively simple, but also important.”

Marussia Cosworth

Straight after the Marussia F1 Team revealed its 2013 challenger - the MR02 - to the media this morning, the Team got its 2013 pre-season testing programme underway at the Circuito de Jerez.

With a brand new driver in a brand new car, the main thrust of the morning’s programme was acclimatisation. The Team is running KERS for the very first time so there was a detailed focus on systems and procedures, as well as getting to grips with the range of Pirelli PZero tyres available for the test.

Max left the garage shortly after running got underway at 09.00hrs CET and was immediately at home in the MR02. He steadily built his performance from there.

The Team took time out over the lunch period to conduct routine checks with the KERS and other systems before Max took to the track again for his afternoon programme. It was shortly after he had embarked on this that an issue with the right rear suspension became apparent forcing Max into a spin. The Team decided to curtail its running as a precaution while further inspection is conducted with the specific component.

Max Chilton: “This afternoon’s problem aside, I’m really happy with the start we have made to our 2013 campaign. With a new car there is always the potential for something to crop up and cut short the programme, but for the morning period everything went according to plan, which is just the start we needed. I’m sure the Team will get on top of the suspension issue very quickly so we can all pick up where we left off and start putting some more miles on what is obviously a very promising package.”

John Booth, Team Principal, Marussia F1 Team: “Up until the afternoon session we really couldn’t have been happier with the way things were going for us with the car and Max. It was a big day for him but he has been his characteristically mature and assured self, and as a consequence of that and a very seamless morning’s running, we have every reason to feel encouraged by our big picture. In terms of the specific issue we encountered this afternoon, we will naturally ensure we conduct a thorough inspection of the component in question and see what solution we can bring to recommence our programme.”

Sauber Ferrari

The Sauber F1 Team enjoyed a successful roll-out of the C32-Ferrari in Jerez. Nico Hülkenberg completed 79 laps without any noteworthy problems. He started the day doing some short runs and systems checks, followed by aerodynamic measurements.

Tom McCullough (Head of Track Engineering): "It was a successful first day of testing for the C32 with Nico getting used to the systems and the team, as well as familiarising himself with the 2013 tyres. We also signed off a number of aerodynamic items. Overall it was really a productive day."

Nico Hülkenberg: "I had a positive first day, with no major problems on the reliability side, and the cooling particularly worked well, which is a relief for the engineers. The car behaved well on this track. For me it was the usual familiarisation with the car as it was my first day in my new environment. I’m quite happy how everything went. There is obviously still a lot of work to do, but overall it was a very productive day."

Tomorrow, Nico will continue driving the C32. Esteban Gutiérrez will take over on Thursday and Friday.