21/02/2015
NEWS STORY
Had it not been for the rain shower that hit the Circuit de Catalunya around forty minutes before the lunch break, and which finally cleared up almost forty minutes after the break, we might well have seen today's mileage surpass yesterday's. As it was, the ten drivers on duty managed 813 laps (compared to yesterday's 946), five of them in excess of 100.
Though third on the timesheets, there is no doubting Mercedes pace. "Still feeling under the weather but I'm pushing for you guys," tweeted Lewis, the Briton still managing to complete 101 laps and post a time - on mediums - that was only beaten once a couple of rivals switched to the super-soft rubber.
Fever or no fever, neither the world champion nor his car missed a beat today, leaving us to wonder what exactly the pace will be like when the German team finally opts to show its hand.
Aware of the change in the weather, Williams changed its planned schedule and instead shared driving duties between Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, the Brazilian running this morning and the Finn this afternoon.
While Massa completed 55 laps this morning, posting a best time of 1:26.912, his teammate didn't post a time until the final moments of the session. Though he had completed more than 40 laps, the Finn and his team were focussing on pit stops rather than times. Which suggests that the Grove outfit has supreme confidence in its on-track package.
Having topped the timesheets on Thursday, Pastor Maldonado and Lotus will be delighted to be up there again, the Enstone outfit now running the all-conquering Mercedes power unit. That said, his best time was set on the super-softs so we shouldn't get too carried away.
A strong performance also from Max Verstappen, the Dutch youngster adding another 129 laps to his tally as he builds confidence ahead of the season. Like Maldonado his best time was posted on the super-softs. However, the team's day was slightly marred when the car ground to a halt on the main straight just moments after Jenson Button had stopped further down the straight bringing out the red flag.
Having missed much of the morning as his team tried to solve a gearbox issue that appeared late yesterday, Marcus Ericsson finally got out just before lunch. The Swedish youngster subsequently completing 53 laps on his way to posting the fourth best time of the day.
Sebastian Vettel's day got off to the worst possible start when he spun off on his out lap just moments in to the session, thus causing the first red flag of the day. Returning to the pits he admitted to making a mistake, having hit a damp patch on his cold tyres. He was soon back out again but appeared to be focussing on mileage as opposed to pace. All under the watchful eye of company president Sergio Marchionne.
Daniil Kvyat ran a number of long runs in the afternoon, though it was initially aborted after just a couple of laps due to the conditions. Nonetheless, when he was up and running the car didn't miss a beat and his times were good.
Helping out at Force India, Pascal Wehrlein had another solid day, the German youngster continuing to impress.
Though Bottas only completed a couple of timed laps he was still able to leapfrog Jenson Button as McLaren's woes continued. Yesterday's 59 laps for teammate Fernando Alonso must have seemed like a cruel joke as the Briton ground to a halt just eighty minutes into the day, causing the second red flag.
Reporting that he'd suffered a "total loss of power" he was soon back on track for a few more exploratory laps. In the afternoon he didn't appear until a couple of hours after the break, completing another couple of laps before heading back to the pits.
"After the morning session, we found similar issues to Thursday," revealed the Woking team. "We will now resume testing this afternoon with limited power to the MGU-K. A new re-engineered seal is scheduled to arrive and will be applied later this evening."
Though he did indeed take to the track again, just twenty minute before the end of the session, with just 24 laps under his belt, the Briton ground to a halt as he exited the pitlane.
All in all a good day, even if McLaren (and Honda) will be working late into the night tonight... and not just tonight.
Setting the day's fastest lap whilst he accomplished an extensive programme comprising various aero, tyre and performance simulations, Maldonado completed 104 laps.
"We achieved a lot today," said the Venezuelan, "and it was great to complete so many laps and end the day as the fastest car. Certainly, I feel much more confident in the E23 and we're learning a lot about it with all the laps we're completing. I'm able to push when needed and everything about the whole package feels a lot more together than last year, especially if you remember where we were in terms of performance and reliability during the pre-season in 2014. We still have a lot of work to do, but we're making very good progress so we're all very positive about the work being done."
"It was a productive day for us today," added Alan Permane, the team's Trackside Operations Director. "We chose to stay in the garage when it was damp outside yet we still managed to complete over a hundred laps. We've worked through a long checklist including aero and tyre assessments in the morning, then various performance assessments in the afternoons. Our aero work has been particularly productive and we're showing good correlation with our wind tunnel and simulations."
Finishing second on the timesheets, today marked the end of Max Verstappen's cockpit time until next week.
"A good session and the first time I've done over a hundred laps in a single day," said the Dutch teenager. "We got through a lot of items on the job sheet, with some faster runs in the morning. The car felt really good and it seems we are improving the car step by step. Compared to after the first test in Jerez, I feel more confident and more comfortable with the car, as I start to learn about every aspect of the job. Now, I'm really looking forward to seeing what the engineers can come up with for the final test here next week."
"A very interesting and useful day," added Chief Race Engineer, Phil Charles, "with much fewer problems than yesterday, which is why Max completed more laps than any of the other drivers. Second fastest? We are not looking at lap times yet, but that was just the natural result of running the Supersoft Pirelli. In fact we worked with many different tyre types today, which was useful for Max. He did a mix of short and long runs and practiced various race procedures that are new to him, including "lift off," the technique for saving fuel during periods of a Grand Prix. He also had plenty of pit stop practice and that's what caused him to stop just before the end of the day, as the clutch had had enough. It was a case of having worn the car out with all that work rather than a technical problem. Hopefully, Carlos can have an equally productive day tomorrow."
At Mercedes, today's schedule consisted of suspension and aerodynamic work. Hamilton, who emerged for his first run at precisely 09:00, completing 41 laps before lunch and a further 60 after the lunch break, posting the third best time of the day.
"Just like yesterday, there have been better days in terms of how I'm feeling," admitted Hamilton. "I'm definitely not 100% and I'm looking forward to going home tonight and sleeping for the next couple of days!
"It was a hard day out there physically - but I'll make sure I'm better for next week and come back stronger.
"I'm glad I got some good time in the car today with 101 laps. The guys here and back at the factory are working incredibly hard to make sure we get as much mileage as we can, so a big thanks to them. We weren't looking for a quick lap - just driving round looking at setup changes. If the weather had been better we would have had more mileage but we got through everything we wanted to today anyway.
"All things considered it's been a great day," he concluded. "The biggest issue at the moment is actually getting the tyres working properly. There's temperature in them but they just don't seem to ever be in the operating window. Hopefully when we see warmer temperatures they'll be better. The car itself feels solid and we've been good on reliability. There are areas we can improve on - but we're taking it one step at a time and each step so far has been forwards, not backwards, so it's been quite positive."
Due to a gearbox issue from yesterday, Ericsson lost almost the whole morning session. However, the Swiss team was still able to do set-up checks, functionality tests and measurements. All in all, the Swede completed 53 laps.
"It was not an easy day for us," said Ericsson. "With the gearbox issue from yesterday, we missed almost the whole morning session. In the afternoon we were struggeling a bit to understand the car. We were changing different things, but we could not get the car to work as we wanted. However, we managed to do some laps, and it is also important to learn from these sort of days. We will go through the data and make sure we take a step forward for the next days."
"We had a late start as a consequence of some work we carried over through the night from yesterday," added Giampaolo Dall'Ara, the Hinwil outfit's Head of Track Engineering. "In the afternoon we were able to recover on the programme side and were chasing the weather to some extent. We had pretty variable conditions and it was also colder than the previous days. However, we were able to put together more set-up checks, functionality tests and measurements."
"This morning I was sleeping a bit and, coming out of the pits on cold tyres, I spun," admitted Vettel. "The least I could do was help the guys clean all the gravel out of the car!
"Then, we worked mainly on reliability, doing a good number of laps. We are managing to run without too many problems, but it's really hard to tell where we are compared to the others. We need to work day by day to try and understand our car. In general, both me and Kimi are pleased with the way it handles, but there's still a lot to do. The conditions today were difficult for everyone, as the cold meant the track was pretty slippery. It was good to see our President in the garage and I'm pleased he is bringing his support."
Daniil Kvyat took over from Daniel Ricciardo at the wheel of the RB11. Following a similar schedule to yesterday's - albeit hampered by mid-morning rain - the Russian worked steadily through a morning programme of untimed runs and pit stop practice followed by short runs and tyre work in advance of the team's afternoon programme.
Having completed 34 laps in the morning for a best time of 1:26.589, he switched to a sequence of long runs in the afternoon that eventually saw his lap total for the day rise to 112.
"We learned a lot today," said Kvyat. "It was good to follow up Daniel's total of yesterday with a lot of laps again today. That kind of consistent running is very useful for us and very encouraging. It's hard to know where we are and it's too early to make any kind of predictions, even though we're getting closer to the first race. We're just getting on with the job, making the car better every day and very productive days like today are really important."
"Today's running with Dany was pretty much a carbon copy of what we did with Daniel yesterday," added Head of Race Engineering Guillaume Rocquelin, "although this morning we were hampered a bit by the weather conditions. As yesterday, we got through a lot of pit stop practice and tyre work in the morning but today the conditions for the last hour of the morning meant it was largely pointless to do any running, so we lost maybe 30 laps of running there. However, in the afternoon we switched Dany over to long runs and worked through that programme without any hitches. It is reassuring to have done these two days of long distance runs without problems at all. It means that we now have a solid baseline to work from and we can move forward to the next phase of our testing work, which should build on performance."
"We were expecting rain today so we changed the plan slightly," admitted Williams Chief Test & Support Engineer, Rod Nelson. "The day was dedicated to pitstop practice and we ran through various scenarios, issues and problems we may encounter in a race situation. I am happy with the way the team has managed themselves and worked with the issues thrown at them. We have a busy programme planned for Valtteri tomorrow so hopefully the conditions are good."
"I did a few laps at the start of the day, but it was hard to gain anything from my perspective," said Massa. "The programme for the day was to practice the pitstop procedure which come a Grand Prix are always important. It is positive to have the team ready and it's always good for the driver to practice so the team know what to expect. The whole procedure has to be quick and we can only do that by practicing."
"The programme for the whole day was pitstop practice," added Bottas. "It was difficult to get a feel for the car on the rest of the lap as I was on old tyres and my only proper run was when the track was very cold at the end of the day. It was good for the team to practice the pitstop procedure, but also for me to practice too. Australia is just a few weeks away and we need to be ready for all elements of the race. Every stop is important and it's good to be well prepared."
Pascal Wehrlein was back in the driving seat for Force India completing 81 laps in the Silverstone outfit's 2014 car. Nico Hulkenberg will make his 2015 debut in the final day of testing tomorrow.
"It was great to be back in the car after a surprising Thursday and this turned out to be another great day," said Wehrlein. "When you get into a completely different car to what you are used to, everything is new, from how the car feels to the buttons and dials on the steering wheel. Having had the experience on Thursday really helped me with this, I learnt a lot in these two days and that made a difference for me. The team did really help me settle in my role: everyone welcomed me from the start and made it really easy to work. The atmosphere is great. Today's work was very focussed on set-up and we even managed to include a longer run: it was a good day's work and I am looking forward for more opportunities in the future."
"It's never ideal to have rain showers disrupting the day," said Chief Race Engineer, Tom McCullough, "but in the end everyone is under the same sky and facing the same challenges. Today it was a matter of adapting to the conditions and making the most of the time we had and I feel we achieved that. Pascal settled within the team really well in his first full day, getting to know the engineers and the mechanics; he did a very mature and solid job without putting a single foot wrong. He handled the changing conditions well and did not let the very low track temperatures affect him. We managed to include both set-up and long run evaluations in our programme and, despite the poor weather, it was still a productive day. Our final day of testing tomorrow will be similar to what we did yesterday, allowing Nico Hulkenberg to do his first running on the 2015 tyres and to get his first mileage of the season."
McLaren admitted to "a disappointing day". The damp weather pushed the emphasis onto aerodynamic testing for the Woking team, but this was cut short by a failure of the revised seal introduced today in a bid to resolve the week's MGU-K issues. To compound a tricky day, Button suffered a punctured Intermediate tyre during a practice pitstop, coming to a halt before the end of the pitlane.
"Yesterday wasn't bad, with more mileage and lots of data gathered, but today's been tricky - it hasn't been my day," said Button. "We had a similar problem to the one we faced on Thursday, with the faulty MGU-K seal, so the afternoon running was limited to aero testing and pitstop practice.
"I still can't comment on where the car will be when everything is running smoothly, as I haven't had the chance to run it properly without meeting problems. Having said that, I feel like there's definitely nothing wrong with the car or any stand-out issues with driveability. You jump in the car and everything feels good.
"Hopefully, our problems will be solved sooner rather than later, but tomorrow is still likely to be a reasonably difficult day. There's a lot for us to improve at the moment - we've still got five days of testing left, so hopefully they'll be five good days."
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