09/07/2014
NEWS STORY
Deputising for Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari, Jules Bianchi set the pace on the second and final day of the Silverstone in-season test.
The Frenchman, a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy since 2010, was a last minute call-up following Raikkonen's crash on the opening laps of Sunday's Grand Prix.
On the agenda for the Marussia driver were aerodynamic and set-up tests on the F14 T, the Frenchman completing 89 laps on the medium and hard tyres, as well as doing some practice starts on the softer of the two compounds.
"By the end of the day I got a really good feeling in the car, even if at the start, it was not so easy adapting to a car that's very different to the one I race," said Bianchi. "The parameters are completely different and I spent the first runs getting used to it. Today we worked on race set-up, trying various settings, both old and new, aimed at producing improvements in the coming races.
"Putting on a Ferrari race suit is always a special feeling," he continued, "and I hope one day I can wear it as a race driver, even if I have a lot to learn. But above all, I have a job to do for my Marussia team and so far the season is going really well."
Next up was Toro Rosso where Daniil Kvyat was at the wheel as the Faenza team began the day with some aero measurement runs. He also did some tyre work, getting in three runs on the medium and soft compound tyres. In the afternoon, the programme switched to evaluating changes to the mechanical set-up and the Russian driver ended the test doing some runs with a high fuel load.
"I felt this was a very productive day," said Kvyat, "ticking a lot of boxes on our programme. Personally, I found it very useful and learned a lot. The tyre management tests in the morning were particularly useful. Now we can look at all the data we gathered here and I think some of it could already be useful from the next race in Germany. It's a shame that a red flag towards the end of the session meant we didn't complete everything on our agenda, but it was still a good day."
Following yesterday's programme with Stoffel Vandoorne, today Kevin Magnussen took the wheel at McLaren. His morning's programme kicked off with some aerodynamic tests, which included completing several runs with a large measuring rake fitted behind the front wheels to measure airflow.
In a similar afternoon programme to yesterday, the post-lunch session was spent completing a number of runs to understand and evaluate different Pirelli tyre compounds.
The Dane rounded out the day by completing 91 laps and a number of productive long runs, which will hopefully arm the team with some useful data ahead of next week's German Grand Prix.
Test and reserve driver Giedo van der Garde was behind the wheel of the Sauber C33. Unfortunately, during the short runs at the end of the afternoon session the Dutch driver lost the car in Copse Corner and crashed into the guardrail. Though he was unhurt, the damage and requisite repairs to the guardrails meant the day's testing was brought to an end half-an-hour earlier than planned.
"It was a pretty good morning, as we tested the hard tyres and they worked quite well," said Van der Garde. "It seemed that we made some good changes to the car. With the medium tyres I struggled a bit with oversteer. In the afternoon, during my last outing on the soft tyres, I unfortunately lost the rear of the car and went into the barrier on my second lap when I was pushing. It was a hard crash, but luckily I am fine."
"In the morning we worked on aerodynamic measurements and continued with the car development programme in order to improve its performance," added Paul Russell, the team's Test Engineer. "We were able to finish our measurements, checked the new aero parts and continued our regular set-up work. In the afternoon we did set-up work for the car's long term development. Shortly before the end of the session, unfortunately Giedo lost the car in Copse Corner and went off."
Three days after his popular victory there will still fans in the stands cheering on Lewis Hamilton as he returned to work with Mercedes. Today's programme focussed on car setup, aero development testing and data collection, as well as engine settings.
The Briton emerged for his first run at 09:05, completing 47 laps by the end of the day. A spin caused an early red flag after running with colder tyres from several slower aero evaluation laps. The team changed also the engine on his car after an initial run in the morning, meaning he didn't get as much track time as had been hoped.
"It wasn't an easy day today," admitted Hamilton, "we had great weather but unfortunately had some problems at the start of the day which meant we lost some track time. The guys did a fantastic job to get the car ready again and we were able to put together a few successful runs. At the end of the day, we were going to do more important runs but the red flag came out. It could have been a lot worse as it could have been raining or we could have even done no laps, but some of the things we've tried in the car feel really positive.
"I'm really pumped now for the next race in Germany," he added. "It's a constant challenge for the team to try to stay ahead and I hope we can continue to do that there."
Valtteri Bottas, who finished second to Hamilton on Sunday, was back at the wheel for Williams as the Grove outfit continued with its aero and systems evaluations.
"Today's focus was mainly on testing aero parts with a few mechanical changes," said the Finn, "so it was just out one lap and then back in to change a part and back out again. As a result we didn't do too many laps, but we have plenty of data. A few parts were for next year but obviously we are still focusing on this year and closing the gap to our competitors. We have made some big improvements over the season, but need to keep pushing to move up the Constructors' Championship even further.
"We have been testing parts for the next few races," added Rod Nelson, the Grove outfit's Chief Test and Support Engineer, "but also seeing what we can do for next year's car. Today has been quite windy, but Silverstone is always like that, there is nothing you can do about it and it's the same for every team. The programmes we set both days were completed which is encouraging for the team as we near the halfway point of the season."
Whilst his teammate was setting the pace in the Ferrari, Max Chilton continued with Marussia, the Briton posting 79 laps on his way to posting the seventh best time of the day.
"Today has been a really interesting and productive day," said the youngster. "We've learned a lot about the car and explored quite a number of new set-up developments, which I'm sure will help us in the forthcoming races. The track has been really gusty today so we've had to pick our way quite carefully through the programme to ensure we were reading our progress correctly.
"It's always nice to have a test day where you get the benefit of lots of tyres and are able to properly evaluate set-ups, something we don't get enough time to do during a race weekend. I think we have made good progress and I look forward to seeing the benefit of that in Germany."
"This has been an important test for us," added Chief Engineer, Dave Greenwood, "falling as it does at the midpoint of the season. After yesterday's tyre oriented programme, today has been more about a continuation of our set-up development work and also evaluating some systems which are pertinent to next year's car design. Max has done a good job to drive the car consistently in what have been some very windy conditions.
"On a few occasions today we have had to check and recheck various set-ups because of the wind effect, however the mechanics did a good job to turn the car around quickly and we were able to complete a lot of runs whilst also gaining some useful overall mileage. It will be a busy couple of days in the engineering group to evaluate all the data we have gathered, particularly from today, and then prepare the set-ups for Germany, which will hopefully improve the performance of the car."
Daniel Juncadella was on duty for force India, the Spaniard completing 52 laps on his way to posting the eighth best time of the day.
World Champion Sebastian Vettel took over at the wheel of the RB10, as Red Bull set about tyre testing duties for Pirelli. The team managed to get through the manufacturer's entire programme despite a mid-session delay that saw the Austrian outfit change the power unit on the German's car.
"We did all the work we could for Pirelli," said Vettel. "It was a shame we had to change the engine but the boys did a great job and we got in a solid two hours of track time at the end. We tried a lot of tyres for next year, which was interesting."
"We got out on time this morning, got the car balanced and then worked through Pirelli's schedule, which involved testing tyres for 2015," said Race Engineering Co-ordinator, Andy Damerum. "We had an issue with the car about halfway through, which resulted in a change of power unit, but thankfully we're able to do that a lot quicker than at the beginning of the season, so in the end we lost only three hours. Even with that delay we were still able to complete Pirelli's plan for the day. In terms of the value of this test I would say that yesterday was good. We banked a lot of information that will help us close the loop on our work in the simulator and that will certainly help as we head towards the second half of the season."
Lotus was the centre of attention today when Charles Pic debuted Pirelli's concept 18 inch tyres, enjoying a split programme of running on them in the morning and the familiar 13 inch tyres in the afternoon. The team followed a programme set by Pirelli for today's evaluations over the course of 38 laps.
"It was special to be the first person to try the new Pirelli 18 inch tyres," said Pic. "It was a very early evaluation test and the different tyres and wheels affect the aerodynamics of the car quite a lot, but you could certainly feel that the tyres felt different to those we're used to on an F1 car. It was interesting for me to be part of this very first run to see how they handled and give initial feedback to Pirelli. This afternoon we went back to the 13 inch tyres working on tyre construction evaluations with high fuel. It was good to be back in the E22 for a good day of testing."
"Charles did a fine job working through Pirelli's test programme today, including the excitement of running with Pirelli's 18 inch tyre concept," said Technical director, Nick Chester. "The objective of this was to give Pirelli some initial loading information as well as for F1 fans and stakeholders to see what the car looked like in this configuration. In the afternoon we reverted to 13 inch tyres working on a construction evaluation for Pirelli. It has been interesting to hear all the feedback about the different tyre concept and it's an area we're happy to work on for the future."
Caterham was scheduled to run Colombian Julian Leal in the morning and Rio Haryanto in the afternoon. Unfortunately, due to a CU-H issue in the morning the team was unable to run the Indonesian driver.
However, Leal completed 51 laps, posting a best time 7.373s off Bianchi's best.
"I would like to thank everyone at Caterham F1 Team and all our partners for helping make today happen," said the Colombian, who was making his F1 debut. "Stepping up to F1 has always been my goal and today it came true for the first time, thanks to the hard work of a lot of people, so thank you to all of them. We completed 51 laps which is just over the 300kms required to be eligible for a superlicence, so I'm very pleased we achieved the main goal today!
"I went out for the installation lap just after 09:00 but when I was back in the pitlane the car stalled. We got it back to the garage and after inspecting it the team found out that the CU-H, the control unit for the MGU-H on the Power Unit, had failed. That had caused a number of other issues which meant the team had a big task ahead of them to ensure we could run again today, but they worked incredibly hard and just before 1500 they had the car fired up and we were back out for a second installation lap.
"This time everything was fine so we went straight back out for a first long run on a set of mediums. The car felt good - with the time delay we didn't have a chance to really work on setup options, but for my first experience of F1 it was ok. I was quite quickly comfortable with the balance of the car, and the way the power came in, but the braking is different to anything I'm used to - that would take more lap time to really start to master, but overall I was feeling better with every lap.
"My last run of the day was due to be on the softs and it's a shame I didn't have a chance to go out on them due to the red flag as my final lap time would have been much lower. All day I was on relatively high fuel and if we'd had a chance to do a performance run on the softs I'd have ended up with a quicker time, but overall I'm still pleased with how it went.
"At the end of the session I'd completed 51 laps which, considering where we were mid-morning, I was quite happy with, especially as that takes us over the 300kms required to be eligible for a superlicence. Obviously today wasn't about times, it was about mileage, learning how to work with the team and start to understand how to maximise the performance of a 2014 F1 car, and I feel like I've made a good step with all of those. Now I want more and I can't wait to have another chance to drive."
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