Team reaction to dry Jerez running

‘Finally some dry running’ seemed to be consensus of opinion today at Jerez where Mark Webber recorded the fastest pre-season testing lap to date in his Red Bull Renault.

Fernando Alonso was second fastest for Ferrari ahead of Jenson Button in the McLaren while Sauber, Virgin and Lotus had a more trying day at the track...

Red Bull

Mark Webber was back driving the RB6 and began the day on extreme wet tyres, as conditions remained damp from overnight rain. He then switched to intermediate tyres
and by 1100hrs was running on dry tyres.

A small mechanical issue early afternoon cost the team around two hours of running time, but Webber was able to get back out on track with plenty of time remaining and completed a series of short and long runs to test various chassis set-ups and analyse tyre degradation.

Mark Webber: “We’re certainly showing some good form in terms of reliability, but we always need to work on performance; you never know that the other teams are doing. We’re in a good position at the moment to build up to the first race – it’s close, but there’s also quite a way to go, as other teams have no doubt planned developments for Bahrain. We’re doing the work we need to do, in order to understand the car more.”

Ian Morgan, head of race engineering: “It’s good to finally get some dry conditions and complete some proper runs on dry tyres, which we’ve done very little of with this car so far. We did 115 laps today, which is pretty good; things look promising.”

Ferrari

Finally, the weather was fine and the teams were able to run almost all day long on dry weather tyres. Fernando Alonso was back on track, having his fourth day of testing with the team.

The Spanish driver’s programme involved testing set-up and comparing car and tyre behaviour in a variety of race situations. The full work schedule was completed before the chequered flag was waved.

In total, Alonso completed 132 laps, the quickest in a time of 1.20.115s, second fastest.

McLaren

Despite starting the third week of pre-season testing, today was the first time that the team had been able to follow a concerted, progressive day of set-up work in consistent conditions.

After yesterday’s rains abated, Jenson Button was able to spend the majority of the day pursuing a consistent path with mechanical set-up development, despite the presence in the afternoon of an increasingly blustery wind.

Button declared himself happy with the day’s progress, and his engineers have been extremely pleased with the extent to which he has been able to establish himself within the team, and the depth and scope of his feedback.

A few minor components will arrive overnight for evaluation tomorrow, but the main aim of the programme remains a continuation of today’s set-up development work.

Williams

Nico Rosberg completed 137 laps today at Jerez for Williams and set the fourth fastest time.

Sam Michael, technical director: "Nico spent most of the morning doing pit stop practice with the race team before moving on to a race simulation. He then followed that up with a long run for set-up work.

"The cause of the problem which forced Nico to stop out on track towards the end of the session was hydraulic, but the part was high mileage. Nico will spend the evening working on set-ups and will continue running tomorrow for our last day in Jerez."

Mercedes

Michael Schumacher’s programme focused on developing the set-up of the MGP W01 and evaluating various changes over longer runs.

The team had a positive day with Schumacher completing 79 laps with a quickest lap time of 1:21.437 - fifth fastest. Nico Rosberg will take over the car tomorrow for the fourth and final day of this week’s test.

Michael Schumacher: "Today was a nice end to my testing days in Jerez this week and it was great to finally have some consistent dry running. We are on schedule with our programme but at the same time, we are well aware that there is still a lot of work ahead of us. The final test in Barcelona next week will be an important test in this respect and will give us valuable information about the performance of the car."

Renault

After the showers yesterday, bright and sunny conditions greeted the team this morning and the track remained dry throughout the day. Robert Kubica’s programme included set-up and procedural work.

Robert Kubica: “In the morning it was damp so we just did an installation lap to check everything was working and waited for the track to dry. The conditions were quite windy, which has a big influence on the car, but we were able to test quite a lot of things so I’m pretty pleased with the day.”

Alan Permane, chief engineer: “Finally the weather improved and we managed to complete a productive day of work. Early on the track was still damp, but it dried out quite quickly and we got some useful set-up work done with Robert, which has taken us in a good direction. We also spent some time doing procedural work and practice starts with a heavy car. Robert also ran a couple of different dry tyre compounds to compare them, which was useful.”

Force India

Adrian Sutil took over the VJM03 for the penultimate day of testing at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit today. In hugely improved weather conditions, Adrian completed 69 laps of the Spanish track as he worked through a programme of long and short runs, weight distribution and race preparation.

Adrian Sutil: "Today was our first proper shot at dry running this test and it went pretty well. In the morning we did a few short runs and some set-up work and then in the afternoon moved on to longer runs and getting more information on the new tyres. At the end of the day we wanted to do a further run but unfortunately a red flag came out so we didn’t do as many laps as we would have liked over the whole day.

"The tyres at the moment are quite difficult to handle as the soft compound grains up very quickly in the low temperatures. The mediums last a bit longer but still grain after 10 or 12 laps. There’s no way to avoid it at the moment but I’m not too concerned as I am sure they will handle better in the higher temperatures we’ll see in the races."

Dominic Harlow, chief race engineer: "After last night’s rather dramatic flooding a much better day in Jerez. Adrian looked at weight distribution and car set-up during the session. Dry running today has allowed us to learn some interesting things about the car and the 2010 tyres. We were only really limited by a number of red flag periods."

Tonio Liuzzi will resume driving duties tomorrow for the final day of the four day test.

Sauber

Due to a problem with the fuel system, Kamui Kobayashi completed just 28 laps today.

Kamui Kobayashi: “It was obviously not a perfect day, but I prefer to have a technical problem now rather than in the first race. Although I could only complete a limited number of laps, we learned a few things on which we can build tomorrow.”

Thomas Hunsicker, test engineer: “The conditions were good today, but unfortunately we weren’t able to make the best use of them. We lost a lot of time with a fuel system problem. However, the weather forecast is fine for tomorrow, so we should still be able to complete the main part of our planned programme for this test.”

Toro Rosso

Once the team had managed to splash through the flooded roads and motorways to get to the track this morning, it was time to unpack the slick tyres, as the sun finally shone in southern Spain.

The weather made for a straightforward day, during which Jaime Alguersuari was able to complete a high mileage, running just one tyre compound throughout.

On the STR5 development programme was a brake system evaluation, as well as an assessment of a few aero components. The car ran trouble-free from green light to chequered flag.

Alguersuari continues driving tomorrow, the final day of this session.

Virgin

Day three of this week’s test saw Lucas di Grassi back in the VR-01 for Virgin Racing.

Finally the wet weather in Jerez subsided, however no sooner had the team embarked on an intensive list of testing items than an earlier hydraulic issue resurfaced and the team were forced to spend much of the day troubleshooting the problem in the garage rather than making the most of this opportunity for much-needed dry track time. Lucas completed just 34 laps and as a result he ended the day tenth out of the 11 cars on track today.

Nick Wirth, technical director

“After being delayed by a small spin this morning on a drying track, we ran through some critical race-related procedures which we haven’t had time to get to so far during testing.

"Once the track had completely dried, we started our performance work but we were again frustrated by a reoccurrence of one of our known hydraulic issues. This stopped Lucas from doing more than a handful of flying laps and then finally prevented any more meaningful running, so he didn’t get up to speed today.

"The hydraulic issue caught us out on the first day of this test and since Wednesday we’ve been forced to run conservatively until a new solution is available for the Barcelona test.

"We’ll try and put some more fixes in place tonight to allow us to get some more laps in tomorrow. We’re very aware that Lucas has had very little running so far and we hope to improve things so he can get more seat time at the Barcelona test next week.”

Lotus

Heikki Kovalainen resumed driving duties, for the first time running the Lotus Cosworth T127 on slick tyres, and by the end of the day had completed 68 laps. Jarno Trulli takes over tomorrow.

Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer: “A reasonably good day today and the best thing was getting our first dry running in. We had a small problem this morning with a clutch sensor but as we wanted to wait until conditions had dried up that suited us well. We concentrated on long runs and started to work with the two tyre types, which we obviously haven’t been able to do before, so overall good progress.”