02/03/2012
NEWS STORY
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Once again it was Lotus driver Romain Grosjain who topped the timesheets at the Circuit de Catalunya, the Frenchman just one lap shy of also being the busiest driver.
The start of the morning session was delayed by around half an hour due to the thick fog enveloping the circuit, organisers subsequently making up the lost time by allowing the afternoon session to over-run by a similar period.
However, after yesterday's activity which saw 10 drivers complete 982 laps, technical problems and offs, necessitating numerous red flags, meant the 11 drivers running today only completed 808 laps.
Once again, it was Romain Grosjean who topped the timesheets, the Frenchman not only posting the best time of the day but also just one lap shy of being the busiest driver.
"All in all it's been a good day," said Alan Permane. "The E20 was once again very reliable, and we completed a lot of laps. Romain wasn't particularly happy with the car first thing this morning, but we steadily improved it over the day. In the afternoon we completed a full race distance including pit stops. We then went for a couple of setup runs at the end as we had a bit of time left over which was an unexpected surprise. Tyre performance looks good; in particular during the last stint we used a set of hard tyres and managed around 27 laps with very low levels of degradation which is encouraging."
"I'm very happy with the car," added Grosjean, "and it was great that we could still run strongly at the end of the session, even after a long stint. At the start of the day we suffered slightly with tyre degradation, but we changed a few things and this improved as the day went on. Today was the first race distance I've completed in a long time and I'm feeling pretty good. No doubt my neck will be a little sore tomorrow, but the rest of me is fine!"
Jean-Eric Vergne continues to make great progress at Toro Rosso, although the Frenchman completed a lot less laps than planned today because an engine change was required after a failure towards the end of the morning session. That said, the engine had nearly completed its planned running cycle.
In the morning, Vergne worked on an aero evaluation programme, subsequently switching to pit stop practice with his crew. The next time the French youngster sits in the car will be for Friday free practice in Melbourne ahead of his Grand Prix debut.
"Of course it is a shame my winter testing ended with a less than satisfactory day, with not so many laps completed," said Vergne. "However, yesterday we did a lot of running and the team still has two more days here with Daniel and I believe we can therefore make up for lost time. The day was not a complete wash-out, as we got some useful data in the morning and did yet more pit stop practices this afternoon.
"Since Jerez, the team and I have worked very hard to get me as ready as possible for the season," he added, "and now, I'm looking forward to taking part in my first ever Grand Prix when the championship starts in Australia."
With the various interruptions, Sebastian Vettel admitted that the day had not been the smoothest, but nonetheless believes the team is progressing well.
"It was quite a messy day because of the fog and red flags so it was hard to get into a good rhythm," he said. "We had our own stoppage on the circuit, but it was no problem. It's never nice to stop but we brought the car back and it wasn't a big problem. We didn't fulfil the programme entirely but I think we are heading in a good way.
"I have one more day to go," he continued, "and so far testing has gone pretty well. Not perfect of course, it never is, but all in all I feel quite happy in the car. It's more or less what we expected and hopefully we'll have another two good days to prepare for the first race.
"The last couple of days of testing are always quite important as you always bring a few new things and it's much closer to the car you will race in Melbourne, so we'll see if that works out and hopefully we'll be able to make another small step forward before the first."
"The fog this morning wasn't ideal," added his race engineer, Guillaume Rocquelin, "but the circuit was very good in giving everybody an extension and we did get a decent amount of laps in. However, even when the session did get going it was a fairly choppy start as there were a lot of red flags and as Sebastian said it was difficult to find a rhythm.
"But Seb got through most of the programme, which today was just background testing stuff, we weren't focusing on performance at all. There are a lot of boxes we need to tick to go racing and we got quite a few done today."
Fourth quickest was Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari, the Spaniard working on set-up and aerodynamics in the morning before running a Grand Prix simulation in the afternoon. Alonso was the busiest driver today, completing 125 trouble-free laps.
Even though it was done on super-softs, fifth quickest was a mighty impressive effort from Heikki Kovalainen in the Caterham, especially in view of the fact that the Finn has lost around 3kg in weight in the last couple of days due to food poisoning.
"I'm pleased with how today has gone," he said. "I'm still not quite 100% after food poisoning kept me away from the track yesterday, but I'm pretty much over it and the way today has gone is good news. We keep going in the right direction and seem to have put the little issues that were holding us up behind us and the number of laps we've now run means I'm starting to be able to fine tune the setup and find a balance I'm really happy with. There's still more to come in outright pace and we'll work more on that tomorrow, but I think we can say this has been another good day for the whole team."
"Once again a very productive day," added Mike Gascoyne. "Heikki was running a very similar program to Vitaly's plan yesterday with tyre evaluation this morning and long runs with high fuel in the afternoon and with 104 laps completed we managed to run through the whole plan. We are clearly making progress and what is particularly encouraging is that we know there is still more to come."
At Sauber, Kamui Kobayashi's focus was on working with the car under race conditions and also comparing aero components in the afternoon. Despite the extraordinary number of red flags in the morning and an hydraulic leak in the late afternoon, it was still a positive day of testing for the Swiss outfit.
"I am pretty happy with the car and its handling under race conditions," said the Japanese driver. "We wanted to improve compared to the last test, and we clearly did that. Obviously we couldn't do everything we had on our programme, but I think we can compensate for that. We still have two days of testing left and I'm very much looking forward to being in the car again on Sunday. Of course it is too early to know where we are compared to the others, but the feeling is good."
"With regard to our lap times, we are quite happy with today's achievements," added Giampaolo Dall'Ara, the Hinwil outfit's head of track engineering. "In terms of running through our programme, we have been a bit unlucky. For us today the red flags always came out at the wrong time. But this is how it goes, and we have also had days when interruptions didn't do us any harm. However, today it was difficult to find a good rhythm, and then later on we lost more than an hour due to an hydraulic leak. The fact that we had to remove the gear box to fix it was very time consuming. Overall we gained some good experience with the car, and there is still more to be learnt about it."
It was a frustrating day for Force India, Nico Hulkenberg completing just 36 laps as a result of a driveline problem, the Silverstone outfit having to abandon its plan for a race simulation.
"The day started well with some set-up work and new tyres runs," said Hulkenberg, "but we had some downtime in the afternoon, which limited my mileage. It's a bit frustrating, but we've had a pretty good winter so far and it's nothing to worry about. I've got one more day in the car before we travel to Melbourne, so I will try to make the most of it and carry out a full race simulation."
"It hasn't been the most straightforward day as we lost most of the afternoon session with a driveline issue," added chief engineer, Jakob Andreasen. "The plan had been to attempt a race distance, so we will need to reschedule this for tomorrow when Paul is back in the car. Fortunately we had a productive morning when Nico carried out some new tyre appraisals of the hard and medium compounds, and we also ran through our race weekend procedures."
Today it was Michael Schumacher's turn to get behind the wheel of the F1 WO3. In the morning, the seven-time champ completed just 19 laps, courtesy of the late start and red flag, of which he was responsible for two. The afternoon proved more productive as the team worked through a series of set-up evaluations, allowing Schumacher to complete a further 60 laps.
"The start of our day was something of a struggle," admitted Schumacher, "partly down to me as well, and it seemed as if the afternoon might start that way also. Fortunately the session turned out well, and we achieved all of the test items that we wanted. So in the end, it was a positive day, but we will only see later how we stand compared to the other teams."
Lewis Hamilton was back in action for McLaren, the Woking outfit devoting the first part of the morning to rehearsing full-race-crew pit stops. However, the majority of the day was spent making lengthy adjustments to set-up in order to more fully understand the effects of change on the car. This, stressed the team; "meant the day was centred more around development, and less on headline-making lap times".
The day also saw the conclusion of the team's evaluation of its launch-spec aero package, for the remainder of the test the Woking outfit will introduce a number of new components for evaluation ahead of the opening race in Australia.
"Today was all about testing set-up," said Hamilton. "It was a good day, we learned quite a lot and improved a few things. We didn't get a lot of mileage, as we had a lot of downtime inbetween changes.
"Our car feels better set-up wise, we still haven't added the new aero package - so I think we'll get a better picture of what the car will be like in Australia over the next two days. But I definitely feel like we have a competitive car.
"This year's winter testing has been way better than last year. I've not had any problems, we've ironed out a lot of issues and I feel very comfortable. I'm fit and ready for Melbourne."
On a historic day that saw founder Frank Williams step down from the team's board, the Grove outfit's two drivers finished at the bottom of the timesheets, having completed 68 laps between them.
"Today the team concentrated on practicing our pit stops, completing 68 mostly in and out laps to get the drivers and pit crew used to the new equipment and procedures," explained Mark Gillan. "Pastor's morning session was compromised with an engine-related problem which, although easy to rectify, took some time to identify. Bruno's running in the afternoon was trouble free."
"Our focus today was on pitstop practice," said the Venezuelan driver, "which is important to do before we get into a live race situation. Getting a clean, fast pitstop involves a combination of factors from both the team and driver. From my side, I have to position the car correctly in the box, get a good pull away from the stop and make sure I have clean in and out-laps. We are trying many different things to improve all of these areas."
"This afternoon was great as we did a lot of practice to understand our pitstop performance as a team," added Bruno Senna. "It is very important to practice as you come in at 100kph, the speed you would do on a motorway, and jump into a space just the size of the car. There is a lot of time to be made, and races can be decided by pit stops. I think we've really improved our performance today. I'm now looking forward to doing some stops in a race, and to being quick and precise when the pressure is on."
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