14/02/2007
NEWS STORY
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Now we could be extremely sceptical and suggest that Red Bull's sudden discovery of pace today has more to do with the arrival of (company boss) Dietrich Mateschitz, rather than the engineers and David Coulthard finding that little bit extra. However, we wouldn't be so bold.
Nonetheless, the fact ius that the Scottish veteran has ended the three day Barcelona test, for many teams the final European test before the season gets underway, on a real high, by outpacing the usual front-runners and completing 115 laps.
Weather-wise it was funny day, exceedingly cool, if not a little chilly, and overcast, for much of the morning, giving way to bright sunshine in the late afternoon. However, despite the sun's best efforts a strong breeze kept temperatures cool.
Once again the action was punctuated by red flag periods including one less than twenty minutes before the end of the day. However, once the car (Massa) had been removed from the track a number of drivers returned to work, even though there was less than eight minutes remaining.
Despite Coulthard topping the timesheets, its was far from a trouble free day for the Milton Keyne's based outfit. The Scot suffered an engine problem in the morning, while teammate Mark Webber was the cause of two red flags, one of them the result of a drive chain problem.
However, after its poor form in testing thus far, today's result was a much needed fillip for the team, and will gave gone a little way to convincing Dietrich Mateschitz that 2007 could see a change in fortune for his team. Or rather, one of his teams.
"We are very pleased with the way this three day test has gone," said Head of Race and Test Engineering, Paul Monaghan. "And yes, it's nice to see David is quickest, at least for today, but more impressive is the fact he completed 116 laps."
Referring to Webber's problems, Monaghan said: "We are confident we can get on top of that.
"We can be happy with the mileage we have completed over the three days," he added, "and also with the fact that our relationship with Renault and Bridgestone continues to improve, as has the overall performance and reliability of the car."
Ferrari's Felipe Massa was second quickest, completing 92 laps. Other than the stoppage at the endo f the days it was a trouble-free session for the Brazilian. Teammate Kimi Raikkonen finished seventh quickest, 0.5s off the pace.
Both drivers had done sufficient laps by the end of the morning to complete the duty cycle forecast for their engines in accordance with the new regulations. In addition, they also tried out various set-up changes on the F2007.
Although excitement is building ahead of the new season, it was retired champion Michael Schumacher who appeared to be attracting much of the attention today. The Ferrari legend was in the news following claims in Germany that he is being groomed for the role of team boss, and his surprise visit to the Barcelona track today will only add to the speculation.
Arriving in a Lilac (Purple?) T-Shirt, he had soon changed into the requisite Ferrari colours, joining members of the team on the pitwall to watch the proceedings.
BMW had Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel on duty, the German team having been tipped by former Motorsport Director Gerhard Berger as 'dark horses' in 2007.
Heidfeld started the morning with an aero test doing back to back checks. However, the team cut this short due to the strong winds and then concentrated on cooling.
For Vettel the day was not so productive as a couple of off track excursions along with technical problems meant he was not able to do as much testing as the team had hoped. However, like Nick he was able to do some aero testing before the wind got up.
McLaren continued to focus on the aerodynamic development and set-up evaluation with Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso wrapping up the test for the Woking team.
"We completed a number of race simulations, including Grand Prix specific activities such as pit stop practice as the team acclimatise themselves to the new equipment for 2007," said Martin Whitmarsh. "Alongside this preparatory work, the development programme for the MP4-22 continued apace with Fernando, Lewis and Pedro putting more miles onto the package as we work through our scheduled programme.
"In addition to the work on track, Pedro has spent time at the McLaren Technology Centre today working with the engineers in Woking on a simultaneous programme to that being run by Fernando and Lewis, as we push hard on all fronts to maximise the performance of this car.
"The Circuit de Catalunya is the first genuine high speed track we have tested at this year," he added, "so it has been an interesting week and we have gained some useful intelligence on the car prior to testing moving to Bahrain."
It was another positive day for Williams, with Nico Rosberg finishing fifth quickest, just 0.41s off the pace. Alex Wurz only completed 39 laps, the Austrian losing a lot of ime in the afternoon due to an unspecified problem.
"Nico worked his way through a series of suspension work while Alex concentrated on fuel mapping tests and gearbox development," said Mike Condliffe. "The test here Barcelona has been very encouraging and we look forward to continuing our progress in Valencia next week."
Toyota concluded its programme with Ralf Schumacher and Franck Montagny at the wheel. On the German's first visit to the modified version of the circuit, he tried out the new seamless shift gearbox for the first time and worked on set up for most of his day.
Montagny spent the morning doing long runs to check the car's behaviour with different solutions. Late in the morning he stopped out on the track due to a gearbox control problem. The team took the chance to carry out a routine engine change and he returned to the track shortly after lunch.
"This was my first visit to the Barcelona track in its new format with the additional chicane in the final section," said Schumacher. "For sure it's safer so they have achieved that objective very well but it's very tight so it makes it a bit more difficult to drive the circuit. Today the conditions were very slippery due to the wind so it was a bit harder for the drivers. We went through pretty much everything we had planned today so that was a productive day for us. I also tried the new seamless shift gearbox for the first time. It is definitely a step forward and it worked well so we did a good job there. Now we have to keep pushing over the last few tests before the new season."
"I spent the morning doing long runs, looking at different solutions to the car behaviour over longer distances," added Montagny. "Unfortunately I missed out on some running when I suffered a gearbox control problem and had to stop on the circuit. Before that it had been going quite well and we collected more information on long runs with these tyres. There may no longer be a tyre war but it is still useful to find out about the tyres we have in relation to individual circuits. My running continued after lunch and we were able to put in some more work on set-up. Overall it's been a useful week and we've put a lot of mileage on the car to check its systems."
"For Ralf this was the first chance to run with the new gearbox and to see the new modified circuit here in Barcelona," said Dieter Gass. "Because he only had one day of running here, he was focusing mainly on set-up work and not doing too many long runs. Franck suffered a gearbox control problem this morning so that meant he didn't do all the running that we had planned. He was doing long runs and had already been interrupted by quite a few red flags, which was a pity. But then we created one of our own so we can't really complain. Still, we will get some data from the interrupted long runs that he did. Overall in these three days we have worked very efficiently on the reliability of the car and we've gained some useful information on the car set-up. On the other hand we've also seen that we have a lot of work to do before Melbourne so we will continue to push hard."
Renault had a busy final day, interrupted by a handful of mechanical problems, but was nonetheless able to complete its planned programme.
Giancarlo Fisichella suffered a mechanical failure towards the end of the morning, and was only able to begin the major part of his programme in the afternoon. The Roman conducted aerodynamic evaluations, followed by set-up testing on his car.
Heikki Kovalainen was scheduled to complete a major set-up development programme, but his day was cut short by mechanical problem that proved to be minor, but required lengthy work on his car. The team therefore decided to begin preparing his car ahead of its departure this weekend for Bahrain.
"This was once again a very busy test for the team" said Christian Silk, "with race and qualifying simulations on the first day, followed by set-up programmes on the next two. We got through a lot of the programme and made some good progress, but we still have some unanswered questions - which is why we are looking forward to testing in Bahrain next week.
"We are taking a step forward at each test," he continued, "we are feeling more confident about our package, and that was the case again this week. We will use the data collected this week in Barcelona as the starting point for our work next week. Conditions will be the hottest we have encountered so far, and we will be able to focus on doing plenty of set-up work with the car. The first race is approaching quickly, so there's no time to lose!"
Both Hondas finished on the lower half of the timesheet, with Rubens Barrichello's day coming to an early end following an exhaust problem which damaged the Brazilian's chassis. Jenson Button was able to complete the full programme, however he finished over 1.2s off the pace. Still early days for the Japanese team but no doubt there will be growing concern at Brackley.
"We spent a lot of time this week working on the set-up and balance of the car," said Jenson Button. "We have made some improvements and I believe that we now have a much better understanding of the car and aerodynamics. We still have a lot of work to do before the first race and it will be important to make every day count. I am confident that we can make the right steps to put us in the position that we want to be in.”
“It has been a mixed week for me this week," admitted Barrichello. "My first day was affected by the rain and then we had the issue with the car today so I haven’t been able to cover the laps that we were planning. However Jenson had a better time putting mileage on the car so we could still progress. So I am now looking forward to the two weeks of testing in the hot weather of Bahrain where we should have a better understanding of how we are progressing compared to the competition.”
“We had a number of new parts to evaluate before we run our final package for the first race of the season in Bahrain next week," revealed Jacky Eeckelaert. "Once again we focused on finding a good balance over the longer runs, particularly during the warmer conditions of the afternoon session. Unfortunately Rubens was unable to complete his planned race simulation this afternoon due to a broken exhaust, the damage from which required a long repair.”
Spyker concluded its test, the first with the new car, by finishing ahead of the Super Aguri and new Toro Rosso. Christijan Albers covered 87 laps today, bringing the car's overall testing mileage to more than 1,600km, all without major mechanical problem.
In its final day of the test the team pushed on with its programme, with Albers familiarising himself with the behaviour of the F8-VII and gathering data on the new tyres. He completed a number of longer runs in the afternoon.
"The programme today concentrated mainly on understanding the Bridgestone tyres and getting them to work consistently over the long runs and on the first lap when new," admitted Mike Gascoyne. "It proved a little bit difficult to get a hold of them and we could only do a limited amount of set up work, but we did get some answers and now move forward to Valencia in very good shape. From a reliability point of view, we've had an excellent day with no real mechanical issues and we were able to complete our programme. Congratulations to everyone back at factory and at the track who've worked so hard to get the car here; even with a limited number of parts and spares we've managed to have three excellent days' running. It's a tribute to everyone's hard work."
"It's been a very productive week," added Technical Director James Key, "the car has run extremely well and reliably; a good effort from all concerned. I'm very pleased with the progress, we've done a lot of kilometres and both Christijan and Adrian have come back and got back into the groove very quickly. Both had to learn about the new tyres and both got used to it very quickly. Our reliability has allowed us to progress and I'm now very optimistic of better progress in the next test. We've got a pretty good basis to move forward from."
"Today we made some progress with the times," said Albers, "of course we would have liked to make more time compared to yesterday, but we did our best and the team is working really hard and putting in the hours to improve. I'm quite happy with results; as a racing driver, you always want to go faster and I think we're doing a reasonable job to achieve this. We know we still have a way to go, but at least we are able to fight. I'm happy that I did a lot of miles and laps as it makes me stronger as a driver before the start of the season."
The Dutch team now remains in Spain for a second three-day test next week from 19 - 21 February. This time the programme moves to the Circuit de la Comunitat Valenciana Ricardo Tormo. In the team's first two-car test of the year, Christijan Albers and Adrian Sutil will share driving duties and will be joined by the team's new test drivers Fairuz Fauzy, Giedo van der Garde and Adrian Valles.
Sato, as Davidson had before, conducted set-up changes and analysis of the Bridgestone tyres for Super Aguri. A Race Simulation was completed in the afternoon, interrupted with a single Red Flag but the gusty windy conditions made the circuit inconsistent.
“It was very productive two days," said Davidson, "even though we had some rain on the first day in the afternoon. We completed a lot of interesting work with regard to the set-up of the car. We concentrated on the interesting things we found yesterday and tried to complete a full race distance. Unfortunately, there were a lot of teams here and we were affected by red flag situations, which is a shame, but I now have a good idea of what it is like to compete in the race. Once again the Honda engine was reliable and the Bridgestone Potenza tyres are working well. Although the tyres suffered a little with warm-up we achieved a nice balance with the car on the longer runs.”
“Today was an interesting day for us," added Sato, "we learned a lot. In the morning we worked on various car developments which do not always help finding a good balance. However the car was very reliable so we completed a race simulation in the afternoon, collecting valuable data and making progress. So it wasn’t easy for us but it was a good test overall.”
“The last few weeks have been a real rush for all of us,” said Toro Rosso Chief Engineer, Laurent Mekies. “So it was great to see our new car finally running and completing a respectable 43 laps.
"This was very much a shakedown and systems check," he added, "with no thought of setting quick lap times. Now, we must push very hard over the coming weeks to make up for the fact we have only started running quite late. Like everyone else, our next step is the test at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain, starting on 22 February.”
To check out our pictures from today's session, click here