Team reaction after day three in Barcelona test

Toro Rosso Ferrari

With track temperatures in the high twenties for the first time of any test this winter, tyre data had an additional validity today, as the sun shone on the circuit of Catalunya throughout the day. Jaime Alguersuari had his first day at the wheel, after Sebastien Buemi had driven for the past two and worked on evaluating some new aero components. The Spaniard did mainly long runs to assess the reliability of these new parts, as well as carrying out a half-race simulation in the afternoon and some set-up work on the STR6.

"The warmer track temperature was definitely useful for the teams and for Pirelli, in terms of preparing for Melbourne," said Chief Engineer, Laurent Mekies. "Also bearing in mind that the season gets underway soon, we have carried out a lot of pit stop practice runs, as clearly this will be a key element during races this season. In fact, over the past two days, we have completed a total of sixty pit stops."

Mercedes GP

Michael Schumacher was in action today at the Circuit de Catalunya as the final pre-season test continues. Michael had what he described as a “very productive day” as he got his first taste of some of the team’s upgrades for the opening race of the season.

— Michael spent the morning completing set-up work with longer runs towards the end of the session
— The afternoon saw shorter runs focusing on data collection in preparation for the final two days of the test
— Michael completed 89 laps, equal to 414 kms, today with a quickest lap time of 1:22.892
— The team has completed 5182 kms of pre-season running to date with two further test days remaining

Michael will continue the team’s programme tomorrow before Nico takes over for the final day on Saturday.

Michael Schumacher: “We’ve had a very productive day and completed a reasonable amount of mileage. We were able to check and confirm a lot of things on the set-up of the car with the new upgrade package, and my initial impressions are certainly positive. We’ve worked hard on reliability at the previous tests and our priority now is to develop and fine-tune the car which we have done quite successfully today.”

Team Lotus Renault

Jarno Trulli: "Obviously it’s a bit frustrating that the gearbox issue cut short my time on track this morning, but we’ve now got some time back in the factory to fix the problems so I’m looking forward to heading to Australia and begin the fight with the midfield teams."

Heikki Kovalainen: "That was a pretty good afternoon for me. Jarno had some problems this morning with one of those things that’s hard to predict but the team managed to get it sorted for the afternoon and we were able to work through the whole plan. I can feel it coming together well - we’ll sort out the reliability and I think we are just where we want to be.

Mike Gascoyne: "A difficult morning for Jarno with the gearbox change. We had put a new ’box on overnight but saw a problem with it this morning so had to change it during the session. Unfortunately a water leak then meant that Jarno was not able to complete any real running, but this afternoon we made some real progress with Heikki. He was able to work through a program on the tyre options and the blown diffuser so after a tricky morning it was a very positive end to the day."

Sauber Ferrari

A full programme was planned for Sergio Pérez today, with some set up work in the morning followed by a qualifying simulation before the lunch break and a race simulation in the afternoon. After the qualifying simulation – the first ever for the Sauber C30-Ferrari and the first one for the F1 rookie driver – went well, the race simulation was interrupted after only six laps due to a powertrain problem and resumed about an hour later.

James Key, Technical Director: “We have had an interesting day as we carried out qualifying practice and race simulation. In the morning we started off with some general set up work, and then went into a qualifying practice, which was the first time we had run the car on low fuel. This was also the first time for Sergio to go through all those procedures from Q1 to Q3. He did a good and controlled set of laps, setting a time of 1:22.042 minutes on soft tyres and 1:21.761 on the super soft compound. In the afternoon we started a race simulation, but unfortunately this was stopped early due to a KERS problem, which meant we could not complete the laps we wanted.”

Sergio Pérez: “We did a lot of useful preparation work for the first race weekend. Although we could not complete the race simulation because of a technical problem, for me it was an interesting and positive programme. It was my last day of testing. I feel ready and I can’t wait to race!”

For tomorrow, the very last day of the 2011 pre-season testing, a qualifying and race simulation for Kamui Kobayashi is planned.

Williams Cosworth

Sam Michael, Technical Director: After completing some checks and mapping work with the new aero package, we went through a range of mechanical set-ups today. We’re seeing some quite positive signs and we’re heading in a good direction. We did have a failure on a very high mileage, rear suspension component late in the afternoon, so we’re analysing the data on that now.

Rubens Barrichello: We had two aims today; to work on new tyre runs and to carry out some long runs. The new updates on the car seem to have made the car more consistent, and I was happy with our long run pace compared to last week. There’s still some work to be done to improve our performance on the first lap on new tyres.

Red Bull Renault

Mark Webber completed his test preparations for the season-opening Australian Grand
Prix with another problem-free outing in Barcelona today. The Red Bull Racing driver
completed 97 laps at the Circuit de Catalunya, as the team rolled out Chassis 03
for the first time.

“We had a good day again,” Mark said. “The car was reliable, so hopefully the weather
will stay dry tomorrow and then rain on Saturday, so we get a good week out of it!

“I feel I’m ready for the first race now and while, of course you want a good run at your
home race, I don’t want to jinx with it any forecasts,” he added. “In terms of team
preparation, it’s the best we’ve ever had going into the first part of a season in terms of
reliability. All the departments have done a sensational job in getting every aspect ready.
Hopefully, we’re not too far from our main rivals to start with and we’ll just go from
there.”

Head of Race Engineering Ian Morgan added, “It’s been a good week so far, with no
major difficulties. The weather helped us out a bit as well. With track temperatures near
30°C, it was nice to finally get a bit of running in the kind of conditions we may see at
some European races. All in all, a successful day and I think Mark’s now pretty
comfortable with everything. He has a good feel for the car and how the tyres work,
which is more important than ever this season.

“Tomorrow, it will be Seb’s turn to complete his pre-season work. We’ll run through a
similar programme to today and, as with Mark, try to get him as comfortable as possible
with everything before we pack up for Australia.”

Ferrari

Second day of testing for Scuderia Ferrari at the Catalunya Circuit, again with Felipe Massa at the wheel of the 150° Italia.

On his final day of testing prior to the start of the World Championship, the Brazilian tackled a busy work programme, focussing mainly on a comparison of various aerodynamic elements, before moving on to a simulation of a race weekend. Felipe covered a total of 132 laps, the quickest in a time of 1.22.092.

The Scuderia continues testing at this circuit tomorrow, when Fernando Alonso will be on track.

Lotus Renault GP

Vitaly and Nick shared driving duties again today as the team tested in sunny conditions in Barcelona.

Data collected on the braking system suggests the new components tried this morning are working as expected. Vitaly’s feedback was also positive. Set-up work with a heavy fuel load proved valuable with the team discovering several useful directions.

Vitaly Petrov: “Unfortunately we lost some time this morning because we had a problem with the KERS so we couldn’t do the longs runs we had planned. For the rest of the morning we did some brake work and continued getting more data on the tyres.”

Nick Heidfeld:“We spent the afternoon trying some different ideas with the set-up and we made quite a few improvements and learned some useful things. I ran on the medium and the soft tyres, and the car felt much better by the end of the day, but there is still a lot more work to complete before the last day of testing tomorrow.”

Alan Permane: "We ran both drivers again with Vitaly driving this morning and Nick in the afternoon. The plan was for Vitaly to do another race distance, but unfortunately our running was cut short with a KERS problem. For the afternoon with Nick, we concentrated on set-up work and ran the medium and soft tyres."

Virgin Racing Cosworth

Day three of Marussia Virgin Racing’s four-day test at the Circuit de Catalunya took place in much-welcomed warm and sunny conditions, creating the perfect environment for the team to continue with its intensive race preparation programme for the start of the 2011 season.

As per the plan, Jérôme D’Ambrosio spent the day pounding round the 4.655 km circuit, putting plenty of mileage on the MVR-02 whilst evaluating the Pirelli PZero tyres, optimising set-up and proving out new parts for the first race in Australia in two weeks’ time. Of the 11 teams that were taking part today Marussia Virgin Racing ended the day with the fifth highest number of laps under their belts.

Aside from a late morning fuel pressure problem, which was quickly rectified, the team had a trouble-free day which yielded plenty of very useful data to be fed straight back into the car development programme.

The team were delighted to see Timo Glock back in the fold today. Although he is unable to drive the car whilst still recovering from his appendectomy, he spent the day trackside poring over the data and observing the track activity of Marussia Virgin Racing and the other teams to ensure he is as up to speed as possible.

Jérôme D’Ambrosio: “Today we have had a much more positive day and it was great to get so many laps in and complete our programme. This is the second full race simulation I have completed now and having this opportunity to do four full days before the start of the season is very important. Tomorrow will be another exciting day for me and then we will have a good picture of where we are. It was also great to see Timo back today.”

John Booth, Team Principal: “We have had a very productive day of running today, culminating in another positive race simulation programme using the tyre compounds we will run in Australia. As a result we have some excellent data to work with over the next couple of weeks to ensure we are in the best possible shape for the first race. Timo was with us for the day today and is on the mend and in great shape. It was good that he had the opportunity to be as close to the cockpit as possible – both in the garage with the team and observing the action from the pitwall.”

Force India Mercedes

The Force India F1 Team continued its pre-season preparations with the third of its four day test at the Circuit de Catalunya, Spain. Adrian Sutil took over from Paul di Resta for the day, working again through a full race weekend simulation, starting with qualifying simsin the morning and a full race distance in the afternoon. The team also used the running to test some new aerodynamic parts.

Adrian completed 108 laps with a best time of 1:24.334. Adrian will remain in the car tomorrow morning, with Paul taking over for the final afternoon.

Adrian Sutil: We carried on where Paul finished yesterday, running through our race weekend programme. The race simulation worked well in the afternoon including live pit stops and a safety car exercise to cover a few different scenarios that can happen during Grands Prix. The balance was generally OK, we identified some areas of performance where we can gain time and I’m looking forward to working on these tomorrow when I’m back in the car for the morning.

Dominic Harlow, circuit engineering director: The VJM04 covered a good mileage again today as Adrian carried out a race simulation together with some aerodynamic and set-up tests. The race team were also present again for live pitstop practice before the first race. We have a busy final day of testing ahead tomorrow as we look to complete the maximum preparation possible in this pre-season.