12/02/2008
NEWS STORY
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Lewis Hamilton led a McLaren 1-2 as nine teams continued their preparations for the 2008 season at Jerez today.
Following the unfortunate incidents which overshadowed the recent test at Barcelona last week, there were no repeats today with officials and fans fully aware that the eyes of the world, and the FIA, are upon them.
The focus for McLaren, which also had Pedro de la Rosa on duty, as aerodynamic development, with new components arriving from the McLaren Technology Centre for the start of the session and mid-way through the day. Between them, the Woking duo completed 177 laps, finishing over 0.25s ahead of BMW's Robert Kubica. Tomorrow, Hamilton is joined by Heikki Kovalainen.
In the perfect weather conditions, Kubica and Nick Heidfeld did 91 and 94 laps respectively, completing the schedule as planned. Both drivers worked on the setup of the car trying various solutions and system checks, with the aim of helping the team further understand the new car. However, the work on the aerodynamics was affected by strong winds in the afternoon. Both drivers also completed a number of practice starts.
Tomorrow the focus will be on improving the setup of the F1.08, concentrating on aerodynamic solutions and the braking system.
In case proof was needed that Williams has resolved the front wing problem which dogged it in Barcelona, Kazuki Nakajima posted the fourth fastest time, just 0.499s off Hamilton's pace. The Japanese driver completed 93 laps, while his partner, Nico Rosberg, was the busiest man today, completing 125 laps of the Spanish track.
With the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne just over a month away, Renault - like its rivals - is entering the busiest phase in its winter testing programme with three tests planned for the next three weeks.
Today's warm and sunny conditions allowed the French team to complete a full day's running with few interruptions. The team was again running two R28s with Nelson Piquet joined by fellow Brazilian, Lucas Di Grassi, who was enjoying his first test with the new car.
The programme for Piquet involved basic set-up work this morning as the team continues to improve the car's balance. He then carried out some long runs later in the day and showed some good consistency.
di Grassi spent the morning carrying out some performance tests as he familiarised himself with the new car before he too completed some longer runs. It was the chance to add further miles to the car, which again showed good reliability.
"Another good day and lots of mileage for the car and myself," said Piquet. "The more I drive the car, the happier I feel and it's all good preparation for the first race. The car ran well today and we did not have any problems, which meant we could do a race distance in the afternoon."
"It's my first time driving a Formula 1 car on a proper track," added di Grassi, "and for sure the car feels really good and it was a really impressive experience. I'm really happy with my day, we did a lot of laps, the pace was consistent, and I felt comfortable with the team and the car. We did one long run in the afternoon which went well, and I'm looking forward to working with the team later this week. "
"The two main objectives of the programme were to complete a race distance with Nelson and to get Lucas comfortable in the car as he had not run an R28 on a full circuit test before," said Christian Silk. "Both these were completed without any problems and both cars enjoyed a trouble-free day. Nelson did a bit of performance work in the morning, improving the set-up of the car, and completed a race distance in the afternoon without any major issue, so that was a good day for us."
For Red Bull, both Mark Webber and David Coulthard completed their scheduled programme, with the Scotsman working on aero development, while the Australian concentrated on mechanical set-up, both of them racking up high mileages with over one hundred laps apiece. However, both drivers was affected by the strong winds in the afternoon, when they were on long runs.
It was a trouble free day for the two Toro Rosso drivers, Sebastien Bourdais and Sebastian Vettel They continued with a programme which included set-up work and more practice for race conditions with simulated pit stops, starts and some long runs, while fine tuning the 2008 electronics programmes.
Rubens Barrichello was twelfth fastest (of sixteen) as the Honda RA108 continues to show a worrying lack of pace. The Brazilian's programme for the day focused on general set-up evaluation alongside a race start programme.
Meanwhile, Alex Wurz had his second full day of running in the RA108 and spent the morning session becoming fully acclimatised to the car. He focused on a driveability programme in the afternoon session, finishing the day sixteenth on the timesheets, 2.8s off Hamilton's pace.
Takuma Sato was in action for Super Aguri, the Japanese team back in action for the first time since January 14, when James Rossiter completed 10 laps.
Both the morning and afternoon sessions saw the Leafield-based team concentrate on running more mileage with the 2008 MES system. The SA07B interim car ran reliably all day, allowing Sato to complete a number of longer runs during the afternoon whilst evaluating a number of chassis set-ups in order to learn more about the car's performance.
Force India had Tonio Liuzzi on duty, the Italian focussing on a programme that took in work on new gearbox development items, the 2008 electronics package and brakes. Adrian Sutil will take over tomorrow, with Giancarlo Fisichella completing the test on Thursday.
"Today was a good day," said the Italian. "We managed to do a lot of mileage, which was the target today following the shortened days we have had at the previous tests. We had a few items to test for the new car and managed to complete the programme with some promising progress. As I had a full day I was able to get more comfortable in the car and feel very positive about it. We now need to put all the information together, look through the data and keep everything going forward."
"A day of very different conditions morning and afternoon," added Dominic Harlow, chief race and test engineer. "The circuit was near perfect at the start of the morning session with the usual quick lap times for some teams. We concentrated instead on race fuel levels and building gearbox development mileage. Tonio also completed a number of tests on the some new braking system components and revised electrical hardware."
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