Catalunya F1 test: team reaction after Day 1

Toro Rosso Ferrari

After a five day break, winter testing resumed today where it left off last Friday, at the Catalunya circuit on the outskirts of Barcelona. Once again, it was Jean-Eric Vergne in the cockpit of the STR7, driving the first two days of this final winter test, before everything gets shipped off to Melbourne. The programme centred on car set-up work, in contrast to last week, when evaluating components had been the key element on the agenda. The programme was split between short and long runs, with the car running trouble-free throughout. With the French driver being new to the routines of Formula 1, the team also carried out many pit stops. Race simulation work is on tomorrow’s programme, when Vergne will again be at the wheel.

Jean-Eric Vergne: “It was a good day and I completed more laps than on any of my other times in the car so far. I am feeling more confident and comfortable and I think we are also making steady progress on car development. The pit stops are also getting better and were an improvement on last week here.”

Sauber Ferrari

It was another productive day of pre-season testing for the Sauber F1 Team at the Circuit de Catalunya. Sergio Pérez did 118 laps on the first day of the second Barcelona test. He was busy evaluating some new aero components and doing mechanical set-up work. In the morning he was on short runs before switching the rhythm to longer ones in the afternoon. Today the Mexican was only using medium and hard compound tyres.

Giampaolo Dall’Ara (Head of Track Engineering): “We are quite happy with how the day went. We ticked off everything that had been on today’s job list without any noteworthy issues. It was also good for Sergio to cover a good amount of mileage. Test conditions here in Barcelona have been ideal. Among the hard and medium compound tyres used today we had two sets of medium which were prototype tyres from Pirelli.”

Sergio Pérez: “I think this was a very good day for me. The car was performing well under varying conditions. We are working in the right direction, and I’m very much looking forward to getting into the car again for my final day of testing on Saturday.”

For tomorrow, Friday, Kamui Kobayashi will take over. On Saturday Sergio will be back in the car before Kamui is on duty again on Sunday.

Ferrari

This morning saw the start of the final test session for Scuderia Ferrari and the other Formula 1 teams prior to the start of the 2012 World Championship. As was the case last week, the setting was the Catalunya Circuit, near Barcelona.

The wheel of the F2012 was in the hands of Felipe Massa today. The Brazilian worked on car set-up and, in the afternoon, on long distance runs. A total of 105 laps was completed, the quickest in a time of 1.24.318.

The Scuderia continues testing again tomorrow, 2 March, still at the Catalunya Circuit, this time with Fernando Alonso on track.

Mercedes AMG

Nico Rosberg began the final pre-season test for MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS today at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.

— Nico completed 128 laps, equivalent to 596 km, over the course of a very productive first day of running
— The team focused on set-up evaluations with the F1 W03 this morning, with Nico covering 56 laps over 10 runs
— Nico’s afternoon programme saw longer runs with further set-up work aimed at optimising race performance

Michael Schumacher will take over the car tomorrow, with Nico driving on Saturday, and Michael concluding the test on Sunday.

Nico Rosberg: “I´m very happy with the first day of our test programme today. We were able to complete a lot of laps and tried a few different things which worked out well. Some of the evaluations were really interesting which makes the day good fun for me, and it’s nice to find out what the car can do. We had no reliability problems which is good as it’s important to get mileage on the car. We are making progress, but we don´t know really where we are compared to the others. It will be interesting to find out at the first race.”

Caterham Renault

Vitaly Petrov: “Today the car was working very well from the first installation lap and right up to the final lap this afternoon. We managed to work through the whole tyre program and put in solid lap times all day, as well as working through a number of other setup programs that are helping me find the right balance I can really push with. My race seat will be in the car for Sunday so I think we can make more progress then, when I know I’ll be fully comfortable in the car, so I hope we can build on what we have done today over the next couple of days and leave the test in very good shape for the first race.”

Mike Gascoyne, Caterham Group Chief Technical Officer: “That was an excellent day for us, despite the very late change of driver we had to make this morning. We ran 123 laps and completed the whole program and even though we will not have Vitaly’s race seat ready until he is back in the car on Sunday, he was much more comfortable in the car and improved his times and his feedback throughout the day.

“This morning we were focusing on further tyre evaluation and setup work, and in the afternoon session we completed a number of long runs which has helped us take a step forward with the setup options for this car. Taking into account the number of laps we ran today, and the fact Vitaly is feeling ever more comfortable with the team and in the car I think we can say that this has been the perfect start to the test for the whole team.”

Riad Asmat, Caterham Group Chief Executive Officer: “A good day for us – the sort of day that gets us right back on track with preparations for the first flyaway races. Vitaly did a very good job for us, stepping in a the last moment to replace Heikki who has been suffering from food poisoning today, so thanks to him for putting in a faultless day in the cockpit. I also want to thank the team at the factory and here on track for the hard work they have all put in to fix the reliability issues that we had to deal with last week. Quite a few of the team have been in Spain for over two weeks now, covering the first test in Barcelona, the aero test we ran earlier this week and now the final test, so to see the step up in performance and reliability is a good testament to the dedication and perseverance of everyone involved in our team, here in Spain and back in the UK.”

Force India Mercedes

Sahara Force India was back in action today for the start of a second week of testing in Barcelona with Paul Di Resta behind the wheel of the VJM05.

Paul Di Resta: “Another busy day and we managed to tick off all the objectives once again. The final test is all about adding new parts to the car, seeing how they perform, and getting our set-up sorted for Melbourne. I think we have a good idea of where we need to be based on the performance of the car today and Nico will continue with that work tomorrow. As I said last week, we are definitely making progress in terms of performance and we’re getting a good understanding for the new 2012 tyre constructions.”

Jakob Andreasen, Chief Engineer: “Our second week in Barcelona has got off to a good start with another reliable day of running. Paul covered just shy of 100 laps and worked through the programme without any significant issues. The priority was to shakedown the second chassis, which we ran for the first time today, and that went smoothly with no issues to report. As the first race in Melbourne approaches, there are more developments arriving at the track and our task this week is to evaluate as much as we can. The first of those were on the car today, so we carried out some aero passes and had some encouraging feedback from Paul.”

Williams Renault

Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer: We tested part of our first race update package today, and in particular the new front wing. We then tested a number of interesting exploratory mechanical set-ups to investigate potential development directions for the forthcoming races. During the day, we encountered a couple of issues which limited our running and which we are currently investigating.

Pastor Maldonado: We didn’t complete as much running as we would have liked today, but we still gathered some good data. This morning we ran our new front wing so we will analyse the results from our aero runs this evening. We completed a few longer runs during the afternoon as we investigated a number of set-up directions.

The Williams F1 Team will be back on track tomorrow, Friday 2 March, with Pastor Maldonado driving in the morning session and Bruno Senna driving the afternoon session for the second day of the test

Lotus Renault

Lotus F1 Team returned to the track today for the first of four days testing at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona, Spain. Romain Grosjean took to the wheel of the modified E20 completing 73 laps and setting the fastest time of the day.

Romain Grosjean: "The car was feeling very good and it’s great to bounce back from our dramas to set the fastest time of the day. It’s clear we have solved the problem we encountered and now we have to complete a very full test programme this week. The feeling in the team is fantastic and it’s like last week’s issues never happened. My crew told me that the problems would make us stronger, and this is true. The chassis is stronger, and all the team is stronger. We gathered good data today and we have a few interesting things that we would like to confirm tomorrow which should help us make a good step forwards."

James Allison, Technical Director: "Our main target for today was to compress as much set-up work as we could into the first day as we are playing catch-up relative to our rivals at this track. Of course, we want to complete as many laps as possible, but this second objective is inevitably compromised somewhat by needing to make many short runs punctuated by set-up changes. Obviously, we’re very pleased to complete the day without any major difficulties to the car after such a troubled start here last week."

McLaren Mercedes

First day of the final pre-season test and the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team continues preparations ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, running Jenson (Thur/Sat) and Lewis (Fri/Sun) at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya.

The team is planning on gradually introducing a suite of new components to the MP4-27 during this test. Focus for the opening two days will primarily be on pitstop practice with a full race crew and further race prove-outs – including some more time-consuming set-up work. The back-end of the test will be spent focusing on analysing and learning about our race-one aerodynamic package.

Team manager David Redding: “Having completed more than 2000km at Barcelona last week, today was always going to be more about quality than quantity. We wanted to drill a little deeper into our understanding of the car, and that meant undertaking some bigger set-up changes that wouldn’t ordinarily be available to us during a grand prix weekend. We made good progress and we’re satisfied with today’s results.”

Red Bull Renault

Red Bull Racing returned to Barcelona for the final test before the start of the 2012 season and, with Mark Webber at the wheel, the team enjoyed a faultless day and was able to get through the full planned programme.

Afterwards Mark admitted that there is still much work to be done. “We’re here at the last test now, it’s starting to build up for the first race and we’re pretty excited for that. However, we still have plenty to go through this week but so far so good.

“We certainly have a few more boxes to tick,” he added. “We have some crucial data to gather this week and the next three days will be really important. We’re learning every run and we are making progress I think.

“There are so many things to consider when we have a condensed winter programme like this,” Mark concluded. “You need to get your priorities right and concentrate on those. That’s where experience comes in and we have plenty of that. It’s going well so far but there aren’t enough hours in the day at the moment, though I’m sure we’re not the only team feeling that.”

Mark’s Race Engineer, Ciaron Pilbeam added: “We had a good run, with no reliability issues at all, so overall a very successful day. We spent the morning working through short runs and in the afternoon we did some longer runs, doing performance work. When you get through the full programme without problems there’s not much to say beyond that it was a good day.”