Team reaction after day five in Barcelona test

Ferrari

Scuderia Ferrari’s winter testing ended in torrential rain. The weather at the Catalunya Circuit was atrocious from the early hours of the morning and stayed that way into the early afternoon, so that the team decided to bring proceedings to an end around two hours ahead of the chequered flag.

Up to that point, Fernando Alonso had only managed five incomplete laps, their only purpose to do some practice some starts in the wet and to check out the way the car behaved in these extreme conditions.

Today’s wet weather effectively washed out all meaningful running, leaving Lewis and the team to conduct a handful of lower-speed runs to evaluate engine maps.

Lewis Hamilton: “We tested a couple of things during some shorter runs, but it was very dangerous out there: very slippery and lots of aquaplaning. This definitely isn’t normal Spanish weather!

“We learnt a bit about the Pirelli Intermediates and Extremes, but there was so much aquaplaning that it was a bit too risky to do longer runs.

“As for the world championship, I’m excited – we’ve got a long season ahead of us. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we have more updates coming for Melbourne.

“The championship is open, and we don’t know what to expect. Our whole team will be pushing very, very hard.”

Mercedes GP

The final day of pre-season testing for the MERCEDES GP PETRONAS team took place at the Circuit de Catalunya today with Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg driving the MGP W02. Track conditions were very wet throughout the day.

— Michael completed a number of one-lap runs to try out the Pirelli wet tyres for the first time
— Michael and the team then worked through race weekend scenarios including a grid procedure simulation
— Nico took over just before lunch and followed a similar programme during the afternoon session

— After 15 days of pre-season testing in Valencia, Jerez and Barcelona, the team have completed 5759 kms
— 5759 kms of running equates to just under 19 race distances
— Four Mercedes-Benz FO108Y engines have been used during the four pre-season tests
— The team has completed 35 pit stops at the track with an additional 200 pit stops back at the factory

Michael Schumacher: “It was good to complete a few laps out there this morning and try out the Pirelli wet tyres. There was obviously a limit to what we could achieve, but we made good use of the time by working through our race procedures. It’s been a good week here in Barcelona and we’re certainly happy with our position going into the first race of the season.”

Nico Rosberg: “It was tricky out there today; there wasn’t a lot of grip, but it was really useful to get the experience on the Pirelli wet tyres. We have made a lot of progress over the four tests this winter and it’s really nice to see that things are going in the right direction. We are on the up for sure, and all credit to the team for getting the upgrades on the car and, most importantly, to see that they are working as expected.”

Ross Brawn: “We’ve had a very productive test in Barcelona working on the final specification of the MGP W02 for the first race of the season in Australia. Our upgrade package has performed as we expected, however Formula One continually moves forward, and as always, we will keep looking for more performance. We are happy with the structure that we applied to our pre-season testing programme, culminating in a good quantity of miles, and the car that we wanted to produce by the end of this test. Both drivers and the team have achieved a good amount of work for the new season in terms of race weekend simulations and it is now down to the final preparations for the first race. Then we will really see where we stand and how we have to react. On a different note, we have been wrapped up in our intense programme here, but our hearts and minds go out to the people of Japan, who are great supporters of our sport, in this time of tragedy.”

Williams Cosworth

Pastor Maldonado completed 23 laps of running in heavy rain posting a quickest time of 1:44.333 to finish second overall of the five drivers running today at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya.

Sam Michael, Technical Director: Today was a complete washout in Barcelona! It’s always useful to run in the wet, but it was too much unfortunately. Regardless, we’ve put some useful mileage on the FW33 at this final test, highlighted a few areas to work on from a reliability and performance side, and now we’re all really looking forward to start racing again.

Pastor Maldonado: It was quite difficult today as the track was so wet. We tried some different things in the car though looking ahead to the races and it is looking good. It is my first time driving the FW33 in these kind of conditions and I think it was really important for me to get a run in the wet today.

Williams will be back on track for the first race of the season, the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, 25 – 27 March.