Silverstone, Day 3: Vettel fastest on final day

On the third and final day of the Young Driver Test at Silverstone it was Sebastian Vettel who topped the timesheets for Red Bull, the defending world champion having spent his afternoon behind the wheel undertaking tyre tests for Pirelli.

Preceding Vettel in the RB9 was Carlos Sainz Jr., completing his second half day of testing at Silverstone. On Thursday, the Spanish racer was second for Toro Rosso. In the senior team Sainz Jr. managed a more than respectable fourth, with a 1m33.546s lap that put him behind two current race drivers – one a triple world champion – and Nicolas Prost, who finished the day third for Lotus.

Prost was behind the wheel of the E21 for a second day, having driven for Lotus on Wednesday. Despite impressing on his debut, Prost found an extra 1.5 seconds between Wednesday and Friday, fastest of the young drivers at the test with a 1m33.256s lap – three-tenths faster than the celebrated Sainz Jr.

At the end of the morning session it was another race journalist who topped the timesheets; Adrian Sutil was undertaking tyre evaluation work and managed a best lap of 1m33.242s, fast enough to keep the Force India driver in second place when the chequered flag fell to mark the end of the test.

In the late afternoon, Sutil handed the VJM06 back to James Calado, one of only two drivers to take part in all three days of the test. The young Briton managed only five laps before time was called on the session, and finished the day ahead of only Jules Bianchi, who was testing tyres with Marussia.

Felipe Massa, Jean-Eric Vergne, Giedo van der Garde, and Charles Pic completed the list of race drivers undertaking tyre evaluation work on Friday.

Susie Wolff made headlines by taking part in her first full test for Williams; while the Scottish racer has undertaken straight-line aerodynamic testing for the team, the 89 laps she completed on Friday will have been a vital step towards her stated goal of acquiring an FIA superlicense.

Wolff ended the day ninth on the timesheets, with a fastest lap of 1m35.093s, eight-tenths down on Gary Paffett, who managed eighth for McLaren after 77 laps of Silverstone. Paffett lost a lot of time to an engine problem in the morning, with only six laps under his belt when the team broke for lunch.

The big incident of the day came about courtesy of Toro Rosso rookie Daniil Kvyat, who beached his car in the gravel after 22 laps, bringing out a red flag and ending his run in the process.

Davide Rigon completed a third day of running for Ferrari, and finished the day in fifth on the timesheets with a 1m33.592s lap set in a truncated morning session before Massa took over. Rodolfo Gonzalez made a second – short – appearance for Marussia, setting a 1m36.339s lap that saw the Venezuelan end the day’s running in 14th.

Kimiya Sato made his debut for Sauber, finishing a respectable 13th after 67 laps with a fastest time of 1m35.642s.

Caterham Renault

Giedo van der Garde: “That was a useful morning’s work. 65 laps is quite a bit over a full race distance here and we’ve got through a lot of tyre work so everyone’s pretty pleased with how it went. The runplan meant we were looking at both short and long run tyre performance and we’d targeted about the number of laps we completed, so now we have a lot of new data to work on with Pirelli and our own tyre engineers to see how today can help us in Hungary next week, and for the rest of the year. The main thing for me today was finding out how much more consistent the tyre drop off was on the new sets Pirelli brought to Silverstone – I think that’ll help everyone a bit as it should mean we can push harder in the races, but until we get to run them in a full race weekend it’s still too early to tell completely how they’re going to behave.”

Charles Pic: “Like my teammate I think we’ve had a productive afternoon. We repeated the same plan we ran in the morning and it obviously wasn’t about times today, it was about working with the new Pirelli tyres and evaluating setups that we can work on for Hungary and the rest of the season. I was quite pleased with how consistent the sets we used today have been, the deg levels are certainly lower than the tyres we’ve used so far this year and that should help us.”

Marussia Cosworth

The third and final day of the Young Driver Test at Silverstone saw the Marussia F1 Team’s Reserve Driver Rodolfo Gonzalez at the wheel of the MR02 for the morning session and Jules Bianchi in the car this afternoon.

Rodolfo completed the programme he began yesterday, providing him with valuable experience and the Team with an evaluation opportunity for development parts. This afternoon Jules worked his way through the checklist of Pirelli tyre test evaluations but his day was cut short by a mechanical problem which caused him to spin off track. The resulting damage was minimal but with only an hour of the session remaining the Team decided to curtail his session.

Rodolfo Gonzalez: “Once again I’ve been very happy to be back in the car as the more mileage and experience I can gather, the better. I’ll be running in FP1 again in Hungary so the work I have done here this week will benefit me for sure. The morning was not entirely smooth as I had a couple of spins out on track; nothing more than perhaps trying to push a little too hard on my performance runs after having focused more on the development work. It has been a good part of the learning curve so I am looking forward to putting this into practice again next week.”

Jules Bianchi: “A flying visit to Silverstone for me to conduct the afternoon programme today. I think it was a very useful opportunity to work with the tyres we will use from Hungary onwards and every lap gives us some vital information, so it has been good to be here. It’s a shame we experienced the mechanical problem near the end of the day. It could be fixed, but it would take all of the running time remaining, so we had to cut short our day. Hopefully we have learned a lot this week that will help us next weekend in Hungary.”

John Booth, Team Principal: “After an improved day yesterday we have again encountered a few frustrations today. Rodolfo worked more on performance runs for his development this morning and that has certainly given him more experience of new tyres, something that he doesn’t get to experience during FP1 sessions. We also finished off working on some control system development before returning the car to a standard specification for the Pirelli tyre testing with Jules this afternoon. We completed one test and were about to move on to the second, but unfortunately we suffered a car problem. Jules has gathered valuable data on the hard and medium compounds, which will be useful race information. Unfortunately he didn’t get to complete the programme, including running the soft compound, but we are pleased to have gathered good data for Pirelli and we’re now looking forward to Budapest next week.”

Toro Rosso Ferrari

Jean-Eric Vergne: “It’s always good to get extra cockpit time, putting in some miles on new tyres, so from that point of view it was productive. As for the new Pirelli tyres, they behaved well over the three days, as indeed we had expected, with none of the problems myself and others experienced at this track, during the British Grand Prix. That is a positive thing for the rest of the season.”

Daniil Kvyat: “I want to thank Red Bull and Scuderia Toro Rosso for giving me this opportunity to drive a Formula 1 car for the first time. It was a really nice feeling, with all that downforce and power. The more laps you do, the more you get used to it and on my last run, I was already trying to push and find the limits. Unfortunately, we lost some time when I made a mistake and ran into the gravel. I’m not sure what happened, I just felt a lack of grip at the rear from the tyres and had snap oversteer.”

Laurent Mekies: “Overall, this has been a positive test for Scuderia Toro Rosso and we completed a total of almost 1,350 kilometres. We ran our two races drivers and three young drivers over the three days, working on the new Pirelli tyres with the former and on car development with the latter. By the end of the test, we have a reasonably high percentage of answers on both these topics. The tyres worked well, but we are aware that you cannot get all the information you need at just one circuit and with the same track conditions throughout. While the first two days went off very smoothly, today was rather more hectic. We lost track time with a car issue in the morning, however by extending Jean-Eric’s running into the afternoon, we were able to complete our tyre programme with him. That meant Daniil’s time at the wheel of the STR8 was reduced. He lost more time, after going off in the gravel and even if the car was not really damaged, it took a long time to clean out, but he managed one final run before the flag.”

Sauber Ferrari

Kimiya Sato had his first outing in a Formula One car on day three of the Young Driver Training Test at Silverstone. In the morning, he was building up his confidence and pace lap by lap. The afternoon saw the current Auto GP leader running through the programme without any problems. Sato completed a total of 67 laps, which is an impressive 394.697 kilometres.

Tom McCullough, Head of Track Engineering: “It is always exciting being associated with a driver’s first day in a Formula One car, as it is a very special day for him. Kimiya’s mature approach to the day impressed us all, as he worked well with the Engineers, improving throughout the day. This also allowed us to complete some further aero testing, which was valuable to us as a team. Our three-day test plan was very ambitious. We managed to get through the programme and are happy with all the data we have gathered on both the new aero package and the 2012 construction tyres. We feel well prepared for the Budapest race.”

Kimiya Sato: “I’m really amazed after driving a Formula One car for the first time. It’s so sharp and it reacts very quickly too, especially when steering and braking. It’s incredible. From a physical point of view, it’s also tough. I have raced in Silverstone before, so I do know the track well, but nothing compares to this. To drive here in a Formula One car feels completely different, and the speed is incredible. The morning was really good. In the afternoon I used a few new sets of tyres and tried to improve my lap times. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. The track conditions changed, the wind picked up and the circuit was generally slower. Driving a Formula One car today was really good, and I had a lot of fun. But the next step is to really work on improving my lap times.”

McLaren Mercedes

The third and final day of the Young Driver Test at Silverstone. After Kevin Magnussen and Oliver Turvey each drove for a day, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes test and development driver Gary Paffett took to the cockpit of the MP4-28.

It was a frustrating start to the day as the team’s morning running was cut short due to an engine issue. An excellent recovery by the mechanics in the garage meant Gary was able to return to the track for some solid running in the afternoon.

The team continued with its aerodynamic program, evaluating ride mechanical set-up changes, both of which should provide plenty of data for the engineers to analyse in preparation for next week’s Hungarian GP.

Gary Paffett: “It was great to get out in the afternoon and get some testing done after the engine issue we had this morning. The guys in the garage did a great job.

“It was a real treat to drive the car – most of the work we do nowadays is on the simulator in Woking. We get very limited time out on track. So it’s great to get back in the car – it’s invaluable for us to make sure we are going in the right direction

Williams Renault

Xevi Pujolar, Chief Engineer: Susie did a great job for us today. We did some aero tests this morning while she familiarised herself with the car and then we moved onto some performance and development work with her. In the afternoon we combined some general running with live pitstop practice, which is an area we are keen to improve ahead of the next race. We made some good progress and Susie was good at stopping on the mark every time. Overall we have had a successful test, gathering lots of data to take back to the wind tunnel and have some experience to know what to expect from the tyres in Budapest.

Susie Wolff: It was fantastic today. The team did a great job getting me through the day, talking me through everything step by step. In hindsight it would have been good to run the new tyres later in the day after I’d had more time in the car as I don’t think I got the best out of the medium tyres. Physically it wasn’t easy, but it was what I was expecting. I was well prepared so it was completely manageable. My only problem was my seat as I was moving around a little. Doing the pitstops this afternoon was also really beneficial as there is a lot to think about coming into the stops. It was a fantastic experience.

Lotus Renault

ico Prost completed his second day of testing in the E21 as the third fastest driver to conclude the 2013 Silverstone Young Driver Test. Completing 83 laps, Nico ran through a programme of setup work and aerodynamic assessments, in addition to evaluating a new exhaust.

Nico Prost: “It was a really good day for me. We focused on some more performance orientated work in the morning – which is always enjoyable to do – and especially beneficial after spending yesterday in the simulator in terms of correlation. I feel that I’m improving each time I get in the car. Obviously, it’s very fast so it takes some time to get used to it, but I feel I’ve definitely made good progress. It was clear that the team made some improvements with Davide [Valsecchi] in the car yesterday so I think it’s been a very productive and worthwhile test for the team. Overall, it’s been a fantastic week for me.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “Today proved to be a good conclusion to a productive three days at Silverstone. Nico continued the assessment programme he started on Wednesday and we made further positive steps forwards. We worked more on setup to get the car to Nico’s liking, thereby enabling him to push harder through the day. We ran new aerodynamic parts designed to help extract the maximum performance from the tyres, and it was with these that Nico set his fastest lap time, which is certainly a positive sign. We also assessed a new exhaust in the afternoon which looks to be beneficial. Now it’s time to analyse all the data to determine which parts we intend to use in Budapest.”

Force India Mercedes

Sahara Force India completed a final day of testing at Silverstone as Adrian Sutil and James Calado completed a combined total of 105 laps.

Adrian Sutil: “It was only tyre testing today, but it was interesting to see how the new tyres react. They are a bit easier to handle so the drop-off won’t be as dramatic as we saw in a few races. Silverstone is a good circuit for testing because it’s tough on the tyres and we’ve been able to get all the information we needed this week. It was quite windy so very different from the conditions at the race a few weeks ago, but it was not a big problem. I am happy with today’s work and I think it has been beneficial for the engineers. We learnt a lot and hopefully we can translate it into a top ten performance in Hungary.”

Jakob Andreasen, Chief Race Engineer: “It has been an excellent three days of testing for us. Everything went according to plan and was executed perfectly by the team. We’ve generated all the data we needed and given Pirelli a lot of information on their new tyres. As for the drivers, I want to say a big well done to James Calado. He did a superb job for us and settled in very quickly with the team. We’ve been working with him for a few months during our aero tests, but he was on the top of his game this week and gave us some great feedback. As for the weather conditions, we could not have asked for more. In fact, it was actually a bit tougher because of the heat, but the consistent temperatures over the three days were ideal for testing.”

Red Bull Renault

Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s final day at the Silverstone Young Driver Test again saw the team split its running, with GP3 and Renault 3.5 Series driver Carlos Sainz Jr at the wheel in the morning and F1 championship leader Sebastian Vettel on tyre-testing duty in the afternoon.

After driving for Scuderia Toro Rosso yesterday, Sainz Jr moved across to our garage today and in a busy schedule the young Spaniard worked his way through 35 laps of Silverstone.

Carlos Sainz Jr: “This has been an incredible opportunity. It was not an easy day and the nerves were definitely there. In the end though, it all went smoothly and there were no major issues. I enjoyed the work and tried to do my best in terms of giving feedback to the team. It’s a big boost for my self-confidence, but I’m 18-years-old, still very young and still learning. There’s a long way to go.”

Sebastian Vettel then got his first taste of the new compound Pirelli tyres and afterwards said the new rubber had performed well.

Sebastian Vettel: “We had three days of testing with a lot of different drivers in a lot of different cars and no failures – in conditions that were hotter than the [British] grand prix – so that’s good. Obviously, we were very limited on what we could do, but for me there is not that much difference with the tyres. It was good to get in some laps though, good to get a feeling for them and it’s always nice to drive at Silverstone.”

Race Engineering Co-ordinator Andy Damerum: “Because of the tyre test with Seb we probably had about 2.5 hours of running with Carlos in the morning, but we were very satisfied with the work we got through during that period. The team was impressed with his ability to adjust to the car, happy with his feedback and also with his pace. As for the afternoon, we were again locked into Pirelli’s programme and you can’t make any adjustments to the car, so while it wasn’t the best balance for Seb, he’s an expert at driving round these issues and we got a lot done, 79 laps; over 460km. It’s been a useful test and aside from some small problems, which you always get with a test car, we’ve had good reliability and good performance.”

Ferrari

The curtain has come down on the Young Driver Test at Silverstone, which saw ten of the Formula 1 teams entered for the Formula 1 World Championship taking part with a variety of drivers, some young prospects, some older. For Scuderia Ferrari, Felipe Massa was the race driver in action at the English track, testing the new Pirelli compounds, along with Davide Rigon, a car development driver for the Scuderia since 2011. The Brazilian did 69 laps, setting the sixth fastest time of the day in 1.33.624. Rigon was back in the Ferrari cockpit in the afternoon, to continue the programme of aerodynamic testing which he had started on Wednesday. He was fifth fastest in a time of 1.33.592, having done 20 laps.

Felipe Massa: “It seems to me these tyres work better, at least compared to what we saw in the race here. Over the three days, no one had any problems and from the safety aspect, this is the most important thing. The prototype Hard seemed maybe too hard to race on. I think that in the coming Grands Prix we could head towards a choice of the softer compounds, because they can work at lower temperatures and last longer. Temperature has a significant effect on our car and here for the race for example, it did not help us, but let’s see what happens in Hungary, where we can expect hotter conditions. You need a lot of aerodynamic downforce there and let’s hope we can find the right solutions to be competitive”.

Davide Rigon: “The past three days have been positive, as I didn’t make any mistakes and I learned a lot. I hope that all the work will have given the team some useful data, maybe some that can be used to prepare for the upcoming races. Again today, we were not concerned with lap times, nor did we make big changes. Instead, we concentrated on adapting the set-up to the new tyres. Now this information will be passed on to our colleagues at the simulator. I think this test has been very useful for my work and also my personal experience, even though I don’t see it as finite, neither for me nor the car because there are no limits to improvement”.

With the Young Driver Test completed, the Scuderia is now preparing for the Hungarian Grand Prix, the tenth round of the Formula 1 World Championship, which takes place next weekend at the Hungaroring.