26/02/2015
NEWS STORY
Other than a lap which finally revealed what Williams might be capable of this year, the opening day of the final pre-season test was a pretty low key affair.
However, whilst the Grove outfit finally began to show its hand, world champions Mercedes was having problems, the German team throwing in the towel early following an MGU-K failure.
Talking of MGU-K's, it was another torrid day for McLaren, the Woking outfit side-lined by a hydraulic leak after just seven laps.
After a nice bright, crisp start to the day, which saw many of the cars present looking slightly different to how they looked less than a week ago, a rain shower put a damper on things around an hour before lunch.
As the teams focus of their various updates, Toro Rosso running what (technical director) James Key claims is a new car, the order of the day was checking out the updates as opposed to race simulations. That said, Marcus Ericsson went for one in the afternoon.
There were just two red flags, the first early in the session when Daniil Kvyat ground to a halt in the pitlane, and the second when Carlos Sainz stopped on track (T10) around an hour after the break.
Whatever the problem was it saw Sainz miss much of this afternoon's running, the Spaniard not reappearing until twenty minutes before the end of the session.
Indeed, compared to last week, when we witnessed most of the drivers completing in excess of 100 laps, only two reached the 'magical' figure today, Ericsson and Massa.
While McLaren announced that its day had ended early (again), attention turned to McLaren, where Lewis Hamilton hadn't been seen since the lunch break. With two hours remaining, the German team revealed: "Failure in the hybrid system keeping us in the garage currently. Crew working hard to fix it as we speak."
An hour later, it added: "That's our day done. Problem diagnosed as MGUK failure. Crew working hard to make sure we're back in business tomorrow."
All-in-all a low-key day, the eight drivers completing less than 600 laps.
Massa's time is staggering, especially as it came on the soft rubber, leaving us wondering what Mercedes might be capable of.
Whilst there were late improvements from Ericsson, Grosjean, Raikkonen and Sainz, only the Swede was able to get anywhere near the Williams, and even then only with the aid of the supersoft rubber.
As the countdown to Melbourne continues, tomorrow hopefully sees the track debut of Force India’s 2015 contender.
"It was a good day for us and the car behaved well," said Massa. "When we tried to use the new soft tyre we managed to get some quicker laps in. The FW37 never showed a sign of an issue and this has been the case since we arrived at the first test in Jerez. We are doing a lot of work and seem to be moving forward. I have just one more day in the car before the first race, so Saturday will be important."
"The programme was slightly upset by the rain in the morning," admitted Rod Nelson, the Grove outfit's Chief Test & Support Engineer, "but that just meant we had more work to do in the afternoon.
"We managed to complete the planned schedule though and we have made some positive changes to the chassis, as well as some aero adjustments. We are now looking at what we will take to Australia to make sure we are prepared for the first race. It has been a good day, with no reliability issues."
With Marcus Ericsson at the wheel of the C34, Sauber spent the morning carrying out aero measurements and practice starts. After the lunch break Ericsson went through a race simulation and finished the day with short-runs. The Swede was the busiest driver of the day, completing 122 laps in total.
"It was a productive day," said Ericsson, "and for me the best one of the pre-season so far. The morning went well until the rain came, which forced us to slightly change our plans. In the afternoon we planned a full race simulation, which was a very good exercise for the team to get valuable data. Also for me it was important to get a feeling for the 2015 tyres over a race distance with different fuel loads. We finished the day with short-runs on soft and supersoft tyres. Overall, a positive day during which we have learned a lot. I hope we can continue for the rest of the week in the same way."
"It was a good day for us," added Giampaolo Dall'Ara, the Swiss team's Head of Track Engineering. "We completed a race distance and also did short-runs with a bit of a shuffled programme due to the unexpected shower before lunch. In the end it all went well, as we were able to complete the programme."
At Mercedes, Hamilton began the day with set up analysis, completing 48 laps before the lunch break. However, the F1 W06 remained in the garage after lunch owing to an MGUK failure.
"I feel so much better this week," said Hamilton, who suffered a fever during last week's test. "I have a lot more energy. I'm actually going to head back and go for a run now as I haven't had much to do this afternoon!
"Of course, we would have liked to have a few more laps today," he admitted, "especially as the sun came out later on. But sometimes you have those days. I don't see it as too much of a negative. It's good that you find these things, whatever issues you might have, and iron them out now. It means hopefully you won't find them at the first race. Testing is always difficult. If you get the whole day in the car, the sun is out and the tyres are working you can make more changes to learn where you want to put the car. Naturally, the more you drive the more you feel comfortable - but to be honest in the 50 laps I had today I felt ready to go. I had a positive feeling in the car and it was good to get the tyres working. I've got one more day to now hopefully have a clean run and really pinpoint where I want to put the car for the first race."
Red Bull's day started positively as the Austrian team embarked on improving the performance of the car, but the late morning rain then interrupted proceedings. A mechanical issue in the afternoon then meant the team could not pursue the run plan it had mapped out and Kvyat was switched to a series of shorter runs, with the Russian getting through 75 laps.
"We more or less had a decent day," said Kvyat. "We were able to get quite a lot done and hopefully we'll get more done tomorrow. These last couple of days are really important in terms of understanding where we are, understanding the engine and chassis, so it's good to get as much running as possible. It felt fine today. There's always room for improvement though so we'll be pushing to find that."
"Not a perfect start to this final test," admitted Head of Race Engineering, Guillaume Rocquelin. "After we sorted a small problem Dany had on the install lap, we ran well in the morning and got through some shorter runs, turning the car round quickly in the garage after set-up changes and trying to build up some performance. However, then the rain came and that set everything back a bit.
"In the afternoon we were planning on a long run but about 10 laps into his stint, we noticed a problem on the car and Dany came back to the garage. We felt it would be better to wait for some new parts overnight so we went back to shorter runs in the late afternoon and we'll probably do the same first thing tomorrow morning until the parts are onboard."
Romain Grosjean completed 75 laps over the course of a programme of set-up evaluations and performance simulations, in particular evaluating a new front suspension geometry.
"We tried a lot of different set-ups today so there was a lot of returning to the garage for different things to be changed, which is all part of testing," said the Frenchman. "The car's been reliable again and we've gone through quite a bit of work even if the lap count isn't as high as some other days - it's all part of the learning process at a test. I'm looking forward to watching further progress with the car tomorrow then getting back out on track myself on Saturday."
"We had a productive morning evaluating a new front suspension geometry," added Trackside Operations Director, Alan Permane, "then we spent more time trying different set-ups in the afternoon. The E23 was once more reliable and we've collected plenty of data and good feedback from Romain. The track was damp for a while, so we avoided too much time on the circuit in those conditions as it's not productive to be on circuit at those times for test purposes. We're all set for another full day tomorrow with Pastor in the car."
At Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen worked on set-up analysis, practice starts and pit-stops, the Finn completing 80 laps.
"We learned something today," said the Finn, "even with a few issues which I am sure we can fix. The car is not too bad overall, but there are some areas where we want to improve, especially when it get tricky with the conditions that we are experiencing and cause the tyres not to work the same way from one lap to another. Now we have another day of testing to put together what we have learned. In a few days in Melbourne we will find out where we really are."
"This wasn't an easy day for us as we spent time chasing our tails on an annoying reliability problems which by the end of the day we managed to put to bed, but that
interrupted our programmes for the day quite considerably," admitted technical director, James Allison. "Now we can put what we learn today in place for tomorrow so to have a day much more like we want to have."
"As planned, we had various updates, as part of a new package, to try for the first time and so the bulk of the day was given over to aero and other measurements," said Toro Rosso's Chief Race Engineer, Phil Charles. "It all went well, although we did lose some time in the middle of the day. Generally, the new parts produced encouraging results. In the afternoon, apart from a couple of aero tests, we also did some mechanical work. Carlos did a good job, running hard and medium Pirellis throughout the day."
"It was very nice to drive the car fitted with the update package," added Carlos Sainz. "That meant much of my time was spent collecting valuable aero data for the engineers to study. Then towards the end of the morning, I managed to do a real run. I could immediately feel an improvement in the car, in terms of its overall grip and balance. That was a very positive and motivating feeling for the rest of the day. We did have an issue that cost us some track time in the afternoon, but the guys did a great job to fix it and get me out on track again, with enough time to do two more useful runs before the chequered flag."
The day kicked off with Jenson conducting some aerodynamic tests, which meant he only completed a single timed lap, said McLaren. After just seven laps, he noted a vibration and brought the car back to the pits, where we discovered a hydraulic leak that required a full power-unit change. The time required to complete the change unfortunately meant that our running for the day was over before lunchtime.
Check out our Thursday gallery, here.