09/03/2009
NEWS STORY
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BMW's Nick Heidfeld topped the timesheets on the first day of testing at Barcelona, but it was Jenson Button and Brawn GP who impressed, dominating proceedings for much of the day.
After early showers the track started off partly wet but there was no further rain and in spite of cool temperatures the tarmac soon dried out.
Heidfeld concentrated on race related procedures such as pit stop practice, as BMW seeks to fine tune the working relationship between the driver, engineers and mechanics. The German, who continues here tomorrow before handing over to Robert Kubica for the final two days of the test, also did a number of practice starts.
"The weather was perfect for today's programme," said Heidfeld after completing 92 laps. "We could try a lot of different set-up solutions and even do some aero work."
Second quickest was Kimi Raikkonen as he worked on finding the best set-up for the F60, on reliability and on a comparison between various aerodynamic solutions. In the morning, the Finn completed Just 25 laps before the lunch break, due to several stops while the team carried out checks on the car's underbody.
The Maranello outfit claims today's times weren't very "expressive", because the F60 was out for just one lap on the regular tyres.
Jarno Trulli was at the helm of the TF109, working on a programme that included aerodynamics, brakes and set-up. He had a successful day, putting in over 120 laps.
"This morning started off with drizzly conditions," said the Italian, "but the rain quickly tailed off, giving us the chance to have a good day's work. The afternoon was windier but the track surface was fine. The car felt well balanced from the start and we worked on several new things on the aero side which gave us positive results. We were competitive throughout the day and we collected a lot of data so this was a useful start to the test."
"Today we carried out a lot of different tests," added Dieter Gass, the team's Chief Engineer Race and Test, "mainly on new aerodynamic components but also on brakes and suspension. So it was a full programme and there were no technical problems. Conditions were good and we made it through everything we had planned. We did a lot of laps so it was a positive start to our last week of preparation for Melbourne."
Brawn GP's car, the BGP 001, made its full track debut following an initial shakedown at Silverstone last Friday.
The car showed encouraging reliability and pace as the team intensifies its preparations for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in just over two weeks. With only seven days of testing between now and Melbourne, the Brackley team's test programme has been carefully planned to ensure a balance between reliability checks and improving the overall performance of the car.
Driving responsibilities over the four-days will be shared by Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. After shaking down the car at Silverstone, Button had the opportunity to evaluate the car on a full Grand Prix circuit for the first time. In addition to completing a reliability and set-up programme with the new chassis, he worked through new tyre evaluations using the new Potenza slicks and completed a race start simulation.
The Englishman completed 82 laps over the course of the day and set the fourth fastest time overall. Team-mate Rubens will join the Brawn GP team in Barcelona tomorrow to take over the BGP 001.
"It has been a good first day with our new team," said Button. "I'd like to start by thanking everyone at the team for all the hard work that has contributed to getting us here today.
"We have enjoyed a positive opening day of running at our first test and achieved a total of 82 laps, which we are all very pleased with. We did experience a problem with the gearbox late in the day but we knew we might face some reliability issues in view of our lack of testing. Fortunately, it's a minor problem that is easily addressed. It's early days yet but generally it has been a positive start to our pre-season preparations."
For Renault, the priority for the day was to achieve maximum mileage as the team evaluated some new development items. Nelson Piquet also worked on improving the set-up of the car as he completed 125 laps, ending the day with the 5th fastest time. The Brazilian hands the R29 over to Fernando Alonso for tomorrow with the Spaniard remaining in the cockpit until Thursday.
"It was a really positive day for me," said Piquet, "and nice to be able to complete so many laps on a dry track. I feel a lot more comfortable in the car now and, as we didn't have any issues during the day, I could get on with the set-up programme, which taught us some interesting things about the car. I will be back in the car in Jerez next week where we will continue our preparations for the start of the season."
"It was a relatively trouble-free day for Nelson," added Christian Silk, "which is good for him as he has had some difficult days with the weather at some of the earlier tests. We did lots of laps, the car was good and Nelson was happy with it and made good progress with the set-up. So overall an encouraging first day of running for us. For the rest of the week we will concentrate on getting ready for the first race."
Toro Rosso's new car, the STR4, completed its first day of testing, producing a positive result, having completed twenty laps more than a Grand Prix distance at the Spanish circuit.
"It's much too early to talk about performance,"said Bourdais. "However, the car seems to work well and we've already learned a lot today. If we can carry on like this for the next few days, it will be a good starting point for the season."
Bourdais continues to drive tomorrow, before handing over to Sebastien Buemi for the final two days of the test.
Red Bull is here with another new chassis, number 3, so the first item on today's agenda was a shakedown, which went off according to plan. Once that was completed, it was back to general car development work prior to the season opener, evaluating various new aero and mechanical components. At the same time, Mark Webber ran a comparison between the Bridgestone "medium" and "soft" tyres.
By the end of the day, the car had also completed enough laps to sign off a durability check on the Renault engine, which had been carried over from last week's Jerez test. Webber continues driving tomorrow, before handing over to Sebastian Vettel for the final two days.
Adrian Sutil kicked off Force India's second official test of the year. Today's programme followed on from the VJM02's initial test last week in Jerez, with the German testing a range of set-ups, different tyre compounds and conducting qualifying and race simulations.
Sutil completed more than 600km over the course of the day, with a best time of 1:22.452. He will remain in the car tomorrow before Giancarlo Fisichella takes over on Wednesday.
"I feel quite confident and pleased with the progress we made today," said Sutil. "129 laps is a good achievement and we got a lot more data. We simulated a race and qualifying and actually it felt good. We did a long run, which was very important to see how the tyres react over this distance. I feel actually much more prepared for Melbourne, but let's see tomorrow if we can improve our times as the track conditions in the morning were not ideal."
"Today we concentrated on simulating a race weekend," added James Key, "with qualifying runs and then a race simulation this afternoon. Unfortunately the qualifying sims were a bit of a compromise due to stoppages and we missed the windows with the tyres on both occasions, but overall the car performed well and was very reliable, completing 129 laps in total, obviously a very big improvement on last week and shows we have overcome the initial reliability issues. We learnt quite a lot about the tyre performance over the longer runs; we have a little more work to do on bringing the tyres in at the moment as they seem to be consistent on the longer outings but less so on the shorter runs. Otherwise it's been a very productive day with a few aero checks and set-up changes at the end.
Kazuki Nakajima was on duty for Williams, the Japanese youngster completing 111 laps. "Kazuki started this week's test with a set-up programme followed by a race simulation, which we successfully completed this afternoon," said Test Team Manager, Dickie Stanford. "The team are now getting the car ready for tomorrow's run for which Kazuki will carry on with our set-up work preparing for Australia."
At McLaren, where Heikki Kovalainen was on duty, the morning was spent focusing on longer runs using an existing bodywork package in order to establish an accurate baseline ahead of the evaluation of new parts in the afternoon.
During the lunch-break, MP4-24 was fitted with a new front wing, floor and top body and the programme continued - on identical fuel-loads - throughout the afternoon. The team now turns its focus towards tuning the set-up in order to fully exploit the characteristics of the new aero kit.