03/03/2012
NEWS STORY
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Sauber's Sergio Perez was quickest at Barcelona on the penultimate day of pre-season testing as rain in the afternoon finally gave the teams the chance to run on 2012 wets and intermediates.
While the morning was held in ideal conditions, allowing the ten drivers on duty to post some of the fastest time this week, shortly after the lunch break dark clouds formed over the circuit and the first drops of rain began to fall. However, it was to be another couple of hours before the rain began in earnest allowing the teams to try Pirelli's wet tyres for the first time this year.
On his final day of pre-season testing Sergio Perez did 47 laps in the morning, including a qualifying simulation, posting the fastest lap of the Barcelona test so far on a set of soft compound tyres.
After lunch the Mexican continued for another 53 laps until the rain set in. He subsequently completed another couple of runs, now on the intermediate tyres, ending the day with another 114 laps on the C31.
"I am very happy with how my final test day went," said the Mexican. "We did an intensive programme with qualifying and race preparation, which was important to do. I think we have demonstrated that the car has developed well over the testing period. The team has made the most out of all the information we have collected and certainly is in good shape. Also personally I feel ready for Melbourne."
"We completed a good programme today," added head of track engineering, Giampaolo Dall'Ara. "To simulate qualifying was a good exercise for the team and the driver and all went fine. In the afternoon we also simulated procedures you have for a race start and pit stops during the race. After losing some track time in the early days of pre-season testing, we are now pretty happy with the mileage we have achieved. The team back in the factory obviously contributed a lot to the progress. Tomorrow Kamui will have a similar programme in the morning, but a different one in the afternoon."
Today marked Jenson Button's last day in the MP4-27, the Englishman, appropriately, spending the new race package the team will use in Australia. The morning was spent installing and understanding the new aero components, however, this was interrupted by a hydraulics issue which kept the car in the garage until after the lunch break.
The Woking outfit's programme was further disturbed by the rain shower, consequently today's proposed set-up, tyre-comparison work and a long run were postponed, and will be conducted by Lewis Hamilton tomorrow.
"When you get new parts, you want to go out and put lots of laps on it in order to compare it to what you had previously, but we weren't able to do that today," said Button. "We had a hydraulics issue in the morning, which meant we didn't do much running.
"So it wasn't the easiest morning," he continued, "and then we didn't do much running in the afternoon either because of the rain. We put a couple of good laps in but didn't get any set-up work done because of the rain.
"It was nice to drive the new package, and I have a good feeling about it," he added, "but I need to work with it for a bit longer to find the right balance for it. Hopefully, Lewis will put some more laps on the car tomorrow."
At Toro Rosso, Daniel Ricciardo took over from Jean-Eric Vergne. The Australian had a varied day, evaluating aero developments in the morning, before tackling a full race simulation in the afternoon.
With a number of other teams on a similar programme there was a bit of a race buzz, adding to the interest, the rain arrived unexpectedly in the afternoon, giving Ricciardo the chance to experience the condition changes from dry to wet and back again, which will be a useful experience for the coming season. In addition, the team practiced pit stops for the final time before Melbourne, as they are not part of the programme tomorrow, the final day of testing, when the Australian will be driving once again.
"A good day with my highest number of kilometres of the season, which is perfect preparation for Melbourne," said Ricciardo. "I enjoyed the race simulation and we treated it like a real race when the rain came, with my engineer asking me on the radio to make the call about when to come in for tyres and which ones to fit. So it was good to have to make decisions and also to experience Pirelli's intermediates and rain tyres."
Felipe Massa was back at the wheel of the F2012, the Brazilian focussing on a series of set-up tests in the morning and a Grand Prix simulation in the afternoon. Despite the rain, which compromised the Grand Prix simulation, Massa completed 122 laps, posting the fourth best time of the day.
Paul di Resta continued for Force India, the Scot another driver to complete a full race simulation. Posting ther fifth best time, di Resta, who hands over to Nico Hulkenberg for the final day, completed 108 laps.
"It was my final day in the car before the first race," said the Scot, "and it was a full programme with a race distance in the afternoon. It's good to get an impression of the car during continuous running and also to try and replicate the tyre compounds we expect to use in Melbourne. We've identified some more areas where we can improve in terms of balance, so that's something to work on overnight before Nico gets in the car."
"As the end of winter testing approaches, we are focusing more on race preparations to make sure we are fully up-to-speed before we arrive in Melbourne," added chief engineer, Jakob Andreasen. "We therefore simulated a race weekend today with a race distance this afternoon, as well as a pit stop drill for the entire race team. It's all about making sure everybody shakes off the winter rust and gets their eye in before Melbourne, because the next time we do it will be for real. The race distance today has taught us a lot about the operating window of the car and where we need to focus our efforts between now and Melbourne. The plan for tomorrow will be more of the same as we try to cover another race distance with Nico."
Bruno Senna concentrated on aero tests and a race simulation for Williams, the Grove outfit experiencing an altogether better day than yesterday.
"Today was a very good day," said the Brazilian. "We completed some runs on lower fuel, which I hadn't done before, using all the different tyre compounds. I was then able to do a full race simulation this afternoon, to learn more about the car and tyres in a race situation. We have a lot of valuable information to look at now, which will enable us to improve for next time. Unfortunately we had to cut our race simulation a bit short due to the rain, however we still met all our objectives for the day."
"We had a productive day's testing today, with Bruno completing 111 laps without issue," added chief operations engineer, Mark Gillan. "We concentrated on aerodynamic testing this morning prior to moving onto a race simulation. At the end of the race simulation, it started to rain and we reverted from dry tyres on to intermediates."
It was another good day for Caterham, as the Malaysian team continues to impress. "Day three here has been another successful day for the team," said technical director, Mark Smith. "We had a couple of new parts on the car this morning and we have been able to satisfactorily test their performance, as well as running through the broader program we had planned for today.
"We have also made progress on each of the tyre compounds we tested today," he continued, "and the times we set show that we have definitely made positive progress today. Tomorrow will be more of the same for Vitaly, making sure we find a baseline setup he is comfortable with and running through a very similar program to today."
"A pretty good day," said Kovalainen. "We were able to complete this morning's plan and we have found a good direction on setup that is giving me real confidence in the balance which is what we wanted before we head to Melbourne. The afternoon session was cut short by the rain but not before we had finished the tests we wanted to do on start procedures, pre-race programs and all the background checks you have to get done over the winter tests.
"I think we've now caught up with the time we lost last week," he added, "so now we need to make sure Vitaly has a good day tomorrow and put us in the best possible shape for the first race in just over two weeks."
Though McLaren was running a number of important updates, media attention was focussed firmly on world champions Red Bull, who brought a new chassis replete with numerous updates for these final two days. The crew's frantic efforts to hide the car from camera lenses only added to the media frenzy.
Mark Webber was on duty for the Austrian outfit, however, after set-up work in the morning, the planned longer runs in the afternoon session were interrupted by the rain. Nonetheless, despite the shortened session the Australian professed himself happy with his final day's testing ahead of his home grand prix in two weeks' time.
"We had a pretty good run today and once again we learned a lot," said Webber. "However, I suppose the thing that everyone's obviously asking about is the changes we made to the car but I have to say the car was not massively different to the one I drove on Thursday.
"We went through our normal programme," he continued, "nothing drastic happened, and we just keep working away. It would have been nice to have a few more laps today but then again we didn't have a race simulation planned, so the rain didn't really hurt us.
"For me the next stop now is Melbourne and I'm looking forward to that. It's always good to drive out of the pitlane there. Racing's what we're all here for and while testing is good, it's nice to be on track all at the same time, all with the same window of opportunity to deliver - that's what we love doing. I'm looking forward to that weekend unfolding, and the rest of the races. It'll be good to get the season going."
"We had a new chassis for Mark today with some developments parts on board," said Webber's race engineer, Ciaron Pilbeam. "The run plan was pretty much the same as yesterday, concentrating on set-up work and short runs in the morning and with longer runs planned for the afternoon.
"Unfortunately, because of the rain we had we didn't get to complete all of the programme. Some people opted to run in the wet but we chose not to, as for us the track was neither one thing nor the other; not wet enough to gather the data we would have wanted and not dry enough to make it worthwhile running."
Nico Rosberg was back in the Mercedes W03, taking over from Michael Schumacher who resumes testing duties tomorrow. In the morning the German completed a series of medium length runs in order to evaluate different set-up and aerodynamic options. He continued to achieve good mileage over longer runs this afternoon before the rain briefly interrupted proceedings.
"I'm happy with my pre-season testing programme," said Rosberg, "and I believe that we have made a step forward from last year. I have been able to achieve a lot of mileage which shows that the car is very reliable, and as a driver, I feel ready now for the first race in Melbourne. Unbelievably in the last hours of my test today, it was raining! So I have also been able to experience the car in the wet. Now it's exciting to go to the first race and see where we are compared to the others. Finally all the talking stops and the racing starts when we get to Australia."
After Romain Grosjean topped the timesheets on Thursday and Friday, it was back to earth with a bang for Lotus today, Kimi Raikkonen finishing the day tenth quickest, having failed to post a competitive time when conditions were at their best.
While the Enstone outfit focussed on system checks, temperature monitoring, data correlation and set-up changes, precious time was lost in the morning due to a problem with the steering on the E20.
"Aside from the time we lost early on it was clear that we were running a different programme from the other teams today," said Alan Permane. "We were hampered by power steering issues in the morning, which took some time to rectify. Once on track, we steadily improved the car balance through the day. We opted not to run in the rain which meant we completed fewer laps today than would otherwise have been the case."
"It was good to get in the E20 after missing testing last week," said Raikkonen. "We had an issue with the power steering in the morning then we didn't run in the wet, so it was quite a short time for me in the car today. At least we got some runs. The car was reliable when on track meaning we gained some good data for the team. Hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow and we can complete more laps."
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