Most of the teams have published a report on the first testing day in Barcelona, let’s see what they’ve explained following the results order:
Mercedes: Nico Rosberg has done 54 laps the best of which was 1:22.616. They’ve not been able to spend a lot of time on the track in the mornig due to a gearbox problem difficult to fix. “We had a mixed day today with some laps lost this morning. However we were able to work through a good programme this afternoon and, of course, it’s always nice to be quickest at the end of the day. In general, I feel happy and comfortable in the car and it feels better than the last time we were here at this track. There is still some work to be done on tyre degradation and our programme this afternoon was helpful in understanding that.“, said Nico. Tomorrow Hamilton will be driving the car.
Lotus: The Finnish Kimi Raikkonen, even though being the driver with the fewest number of laps completed (44), has set the second best time, very close to Nico’s, just seven thousandths behind (1:22:623).
Ferrari: Fernando Alonso has done more laps than anyone else today (110), setting 1:22.952 as his best time. They’ve done several long stints, focusing on developing the car and understanding the tyres. Fernando said: “I feel reasonably pleased with this first day and I can say I share Felipe’s opinion that the car is on another planet compared to the one we began with on the first day of testing last year. The programme for this first session in Barcelona is aimed mainly at improving reliability, with the target of completing more than a hundred laps every day. Then, at next week’s test we can concentrate on performance. Tomorrow, we will complete what we were unable to do today and we will focus on car set-up, to adapt it as well as possible to the tyres. I knew from looking at the Jerez data what sort of car I would find here today, as in fact we know more or less what we will see at the first race in Australia, in terms of what new parts we will have and how many tenths they will produce. This is down to all the work done over the winter in the wind tunnel and the numerous tests which confirm that the parts that are on their way will give the expected results.”
Red Bull: 66 laps for Sebastian Vettel today, his best at 1:22.965. “It’s very important for us to put good mileage on the car and this morning that wasn’t really possible. We had a small software issue this morning, I think many teams had. That wasn’t ideal but we got it fixed and after that it was another decent day. It is good to back in Barcelona. It is a good circuit to judge a car on and a good indicator of where you are but we need to be careful of doing that as it’s pretty cold at the moment and it’s quite tough to keep the tyres alive for many laps. So hard to know. But overall, not a bad day again.” Vettel said, while Andy Damerum (Race Engineering Co-ordinator) added: “It was a slow start, which was a bit frustrating. However, I don’t think we were alone in that. Looking at the lap times and number of laps done by other teams I think quite a few had a similar problem to the one we encountered. We managed to fix it just before lunch but it meant that our laps in the morning were effectively systems checks. Everything went better this afternoon, though, and we were able to get through quite a few items on our checklist and in the end managed 308km, so I’m quite pleased about that. In the afternoon we were again working on some aero test items. The guys at the factory have been flat out since Jerez and as well as the things planned some time ago for this test there have been quite a few developments based on what we learned from Jerez. So there are plenty of things to get through here. Seb is driving again tomorrow.”
Williams: Pastor Maldonado has given its debut to the FW35, with 86 laps and quite satisfying results for the team (even though there’s a last minute rumour that Williams’ and Caterham’s exhausts’ design may be considered ilegal by the FIA), with 1:23.733 as his best time. The Technical Director, Mike Coulghan, said: “It was a very good day for us, with Pastor completing 86 laps, the second-highest of any team today. Pastor was very comfortable in the car which was shown by his early lap times. We had a small water leak this afternoon on a development part, but we were able to fix it quickly to complete our tyre programme. We feel confident in the core reliability of the FW35 and look forward to continuing with Valtteri tomorrow.“. Pastor also seemed happy about the result: “It was a good day today. I felt happy after the first run this morning and we then completed a busy day of testing. It was great to get out on track in the new car. The FW35 feels like we have made a real step forward. There is still a lot to discover with the new car, but this is a good starting point for us for the season.”
Toro Rosso: 1:23.884 for Daniel Ricciardo in 73 laps, focusing his work on aerodynamics in the morning and car set up in the afternoon: “This was my first time back in the car since the second day in Jerez and we had a full programme of things to try. Because of some of the changes we chose to make to the car set-up, this involved quite a bit of time in the garage, therefore this was not a day for a lot of laps. I’m glad I’m driving tomorrow, because I feel I need to get a better understanding of what we started today. We have some homework to do overnight, but we know which direction to go in.”, said the Australian.
McLaren: 77 laps competed by Sergio Pérez, with 1:24.144 as his best time. They’ve been working in aerodynamics in the morning, while they’ve been doing long race stints in the afternoon. “The afternoon concluded with a live pitstop practice. It was a productive day.”
Force India: Paul di Resta (1:24.144 in 82 laps) said: “The first day of running was mainly about tyre work and making some comparisons with Jerez. I was running on the hard and the mediums and we got a good feel for them once again. We also did an aero programme this morning, which is part of the correlation work as we evaluate some of the new parts going on the car. The plan is for more of the same tomorrow.”
Sauber: Esteban Gutierrez (1:25.124 in 68 laps) has focused on aerodynamics in the morning and comparing tyre compounds in the afternoon. They’ve caused a red flag when the C32-2 stopped. “It was quite a tricky day with the tyres. We were struggling with tyre management and, as a result, degradation. We tried different things in the morning, but then in the afternoon we had some issues with the set-up of the car. The good thing is we have a lot of data to analyse. This will be the basis for us to understand everything.“ Tomorrow Hulkenberg will take over from Esteban.
Marussia: 1:26.747 for Max Chilton after 65 laps: “It took a little while to get into our rhythm this morning as the track conditions were cool and green and the early part of our programme consisted mainly of checks with the KERS and other on-car systems. This afternoon we were able to get into a proper set-up programme and the initial results from that are quite promising. I am pleased with where I ended the day – P10 – in respect of the teams around us. Tomorrow we look forward to building on our performance after a night absorbing the data from the car. All in all, a good start for the Team here in Barcelona”. John Booth, team principal, said this circuit is better to test the tyres, “a positive result today“.
Caterham: 49 laps and 1:27.534 for Charles Pic before his car stopped: “49 laps on the first day of the second test isn’t the total we wanted, but we’ve still been able to complete quite a bit of today’s program and with every lap I’m getting more and more comfortable in the car. In the morning session we ran through a similar program to the second day in Jerez last week, and we had planned more tyre work in the afternoon. When I went out for a stint after the lunch break I had a mechanical problem going into Turn 3 and after we got the car back to the garage we found out it was a gearbox issue and that brought the day to an early end. We’ve already started work on the fix and I’m sure we’ll be ready for tomorrow morning when we can get back to work.“
