23/02/2016
NEWS STORY
Whilst only two days in to their 2016 on-track preparations, the teams upped the ante today as testing continued at the Circuit de Catalunya.
Not only did we witness an increase in pace, with Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo both running the new Pirelli ultra-soft tyre, eight of the eleven drivers on duty completed over 100 laps.
Unsurprisingly, Mercedes, which had Nico Rosberg on duty, took centre stage, the German completing just twenty-odd laps under three full race distances, Fernando Alonso also completed over a hundred laps, a far cry from the misery of a year ago.
The day was not without its dramas however, with red flags following problems for Max Verstappen, Jolyon Palmer and Sebastian Vettel, who stopped on track in the final moments of the session bringing the day to an early close.
Whilst Roberg piled on the miles, continuing with the medium rubber, fans were treated to a thrilling duel just ahead of the lunch break when Vettel and Ricciardo, both on the purple banded ultra-soft tyres, traded fastest laps.
At one stage in the afternoon, Vettel and Rosberg were both on long runs and it was noticeable that the Mercedes more than had the legs of the Ferrari.
Gutierrez was a late starter in the Haas, the American team repairing the front wing damaged yesterday and subsequently running a new one that had been shipped in.
Mercedes ran some aggressive looking bargeboards however, the promised new nose will not make its appearance until tomorrow.
Manor, which changed its programme and allowed Pascal Wehrlein to run for the entire day, appears happy, despite being one of three teams to run less than 100 laps.
Renault suffered another difficult day, Palmer grinding to a halt at T3 just thirty minutes after lunch, his engine wheezing worryingly before expiring in a large cloud of smoke.
"So far the first thing that matters is that the car is reacting and doing what I asked for," beamed Vettel. "Now obviously it is crucial that Kimi has a similar impression.
"About the engine, I can say it is nice to have a bit more sound coming back," he continued, "it is still not as loud as it could or should be but it is a lot better than it was, it now sounds a bit more like Formula 1.
"We worked on a lot of things, it's a brand new car, which means there are a lot of new bits and things are in a different place. We tried to understand how the car reacts, obviously we had an idea and certain expectation, but when you run the car on track it is always a bit different, you are then dealing with temperatures, cooling etc.
"Sometimes you have to stop a bit longer than necessary or than you really want, just to check, other times the driver goes off track, like I did this morning. But these things happen. Overall we are happy, but we know that we need now a lot of mileage, so there is a lot of work ahead of us."
Ricciardo's best time was set just before the lunch break and after a morning of short runs, the Australian switching to longer stints in the afternoon.
"It was a good day," said Ricciardo. "We did pretty much every run on our schedule and run plans are always pretty optimistic so I think we'll take that today.
"We put in over 100 laps and we ran pretty faultlessly," he continued. "It was good for me to get a lot more laps. We also tried a few compounds, which maybe is not so relevant at this time of year but it was good to try them anyways.
"So, for me, a positive two days; you can't ask for too much more. I'm looking forward to next week's test now - I'll have just two more days and then it's Melbourne. I'm just excited to roll it over now and to get to Australia."
"We had a small technical concern this afternoon," added Head of Race Engineering, Guillaume Rocquelin, "and just as a precautionary measure we decided to stop running a little bit early.
"We had a very productive day otherwise, with Daniel getting through more than 100 laps. In the morning we focused on short runs and doing some tyre work.
"You have to remember that because of the short amount of time behind the wheel each driver gets, Daniel is now effectively halfway to Melbourne, so he needs to get up to speed pretty quickly. Also, while it probably isn't the ideal venue or time of year to be looking at some of those compounds it's really the only chance we'll get for the foreseeable future, so it's good to get as much data as we can.
"The afternoon saw us move back to long runs and just as yesterday we got through a lot of work. So far, so good and tomorrow we'll hopefully get through more."
Sergio Perez enjoyed his first day in the VJM09, covering 101 laps on his way to posting the third fastest time of the day.
"I'm pretty happy," said the Mexican. "Everything went according to plan and we covered lots of laps. The baseline of the car shows good potential and I'm already feeling quite comfortable with the car. There are still lots of things for us to explore on the aero and mechanical side, but we managed to complete almost the entire programme and we are definitely moving in the right direction."
"A large part of the day included more aero correlation work and car sign-off tests," said Chief Race Engineer, Tom McCullough. "Sergio and his engineers also started to experiment with different set-ups while we continued to add more miles on the car. Sergio ran on the medium, soft and supersoft tyres during the day, giving us plenty of data for evaluation and comparisons."
As did Hamilton yesterday, Rosberg emerged for his first run as the track opened at 09:00, completing 81 laps before the hour-long lunch break and a further 91 laps afterwards. Indeed, the W07 today completed 801 km (497 miles) a new record for a single day of running in the V6 Hybrid era.
Today's programme focused on setup evaluation, aerodynamic data analysis and race simulation work - including starts and pit stops.
"That was an F1 Marathon today!" said Rosberg. "It's great to see that we are already able to do a lot of mileage - and we didn't have a single problem either, which is really incredible.
"I'm very happy and proud of what the boys and girls at Brackley and Brixworth have done over the winter," he continued. "I already feel very comfortable in the car. It's a big positive to see everyone pushing so hard in all areas - bringing new developments like the floor we saw today, for example.
"The opposition are chasing us hard and we need to keep being innovative to stay ahead. At this time it's not possible to say how quick we are compared to the others. We will maybe know more at the end of next week - but only Melbourne will give the full picture. Overall, it's been a great start to the testing program and I can't wait to be back in the car on Thursday.
"It was another positive day," said Marcus Ericsson who continued with the 2015 Sauber. "I was able to get a lot of laps under my belt. We got through the planned programme, which was a continuation of yesterday.
"In the morning it was mainly about aero measurements, which is not the most fun for the driver, but very important for the team. Later on in the afternoon we again tested different set-up options. I am pleased with my first two days of testing this season. Now I am looking forward to driving the C35 next week."
At Haas the day began with an installation lap 10:29, with Gutierrez returning the VF16 to the track for a handful of five-lap runs. A successful 12-lap stint set the stage for a strong afternoon.
Among three runs totaling 33 laps, Gutierrez not only ran lap after trouble-free lap, he methodically advanced up the timing charts. When the track went cold, he was the sixth-quickest driver. His best time of 1:25.524 came on his 70th lap, when the VF16 was shod on the Pirelli soft tire.
Gutierrez ran the morning session on the medium tire before switching to the softs at 4:43 p.m., which was the team's eighth multi-lap run of the day. The 79 laps amassed today by Gutierrez brings Haas F1 Team's laps-completed total thus far in testing to 110, as Romain Grosjean logged 31 laps in the VF-16's testing debut Monday.
"It was a very positive day for us," said the Mexican, "especially as a new team. It was very exciting to do the first lap. Even though it was an installation lap, it was a very special moment. After months of analysing, learning about the car, the different strategies, to finally get a feeling for the car was very important.
"I really want to thank the whole team because they have done a really big effort. Obviously, we found ourselves with some very basic problems, but we have reacted in a very positive way and the guys are working day and night. We have done a very good job - 79 laps today. So, pretty much what we wanted to do - a lot of miles. We'll continue this program for the rest of the week."
"We started off a little late this morning as we had some updates on the power unit which we had to get on," added Team Manager, Dave O'Neill. "Once they were installed there was obviously a bit of downtime checking over everything to make sure we had a car we can start testing with properly. Then we got into the program. We've cycled the tires so we've been through the softs and the primes. At lunch we made some setup changes and put on a new floor. In the afternoon we were just going for reliability running. We did a few sets of 10-lap runs with the soft tires. We made some mechanical changes to the car as well, including ride height and a couple of roll-bar changes. We've been stopping on the marks for the driver and checking out the pit equipment. Hopefully, we can start doing some pit-stop practice in the next day or so. We achieved 79 laps. We've had a good day and the team's really starting to gel. It's all positive."
"It has been quite a positive day for us," said Williams Chief Test & Support Engineer, Rod Nelson. "We were aiming for some longer runs and reliability work. We also did some aero work and quite a lot of chassis work. It has been an interesting day for all the engineers and the driver.
"I am looking forward to Felipe getting in the car for the first time tomorrow to get a different point of view," he added. "We are all working hard and it has been a good day."
"We completed the whole programme we had for today, so that is always good," said Bottas. "Everyone in the garage has been working very hard. I am pleased with the amount of laps we did today, with the mileage and reliability that we already have in the car.
"Like yesterday, we are just going through our programme and not focussing on the performance yet, so there is still a question mark as to where we are compared to the other teams. I think it will be interesting to follow what things Felipe is going to try with the car. I'm looking forward to next week now as well, to get back in the car and try to get a bit more out of it."
Pascal Wehrlein brought his Manor Racing debut to an encouraging conclusion, pounding out the mileage to end the day P8 of 11. His best time was a 1:25.925.
"Another good day in the car for me," said the German. "We worked on different mechanical set-ups, which was really interesting and gave me the chance to explore and understand the car a little more.
"I'm pretty pleased with our performance," he continued. "We focused on consistency rather than the softer spectrum tyres, so we have yet to evaluate the car on the supersofts and ultrasofts, which means there is more to come.
"We're making good progress and I can't wait to get back in the car next week. For now though I must hand over to Rio for his turn but I'll be keeping an eye on things from the garage."
"Great job from Pascal again," added Technical Director, John McQuilliam. "He's very consistent so we've been able to crack through the programme and push on with improving the car.
"As ever, good mileage equals plenty of data, so we'll be ploughing through that tonight to feed back to the factory and into development. It's Rio's big day tomorrow, driving the car for the first time, but he's been soaking it all up from the sidelines and I'm sure he'll hit the ground running."
Fernando Alonso was behind the wheel of the MP4-31 for the first time today, his programme an extension of that which had been started by Jenson Button on Monday: data gathering, systems and electronics checks, and evaluation of engine modes. In addition, the team completed preliminary tests of the aero package, to correlate the data between winter preparation programmes and on-track behaviour.
Once again, the focus was on the integration and evaluation of the MP4-31's new systems, and completing as much mileage as possible. All in all, the run programme was completed satisfactorily, and the Spaniard clocked 119 trouble-free laps on his first day in the car.
"After a long break, it's good to be back, and to complete a good number of laps," said the Spaniard, "something I missed this time last year.
"The first priority for the team this winter was to make sure we went through the problems we had last year and find some solutions, and we've done this, at least on the reliability side. I'm proud of the team and the job that everyone has done together on this car. I enjoyed today, but I think there is performance we need to unlock in the car.
"Most of the laps we did today were for aerodynamics studies, and reliability studies: brake temperatures, water temperatures, etc. For a driver, these are things that are not very exciting, so I'm looking forward to doing some setup changes and running with different fuel levels to really enjoy the driving as well.
"On the aerodynamic side, there are a lot of parts that are quite new for us, so we need a little bit of time to mature the package, and the same on the power unit, too. For us, last year we learned a lot, and now with a completely new philosophy we still need a bit of time to understand everything and exploit its potential."
"We had a good day with regard to reliability again," added Director of Engineering, Matt Morris, "enjoying two days with no serious reliability issues has been a real positive.
"Today we spent most of the morning performing aero characterisation work, which required a lot of the instrumentation on the car. Although this part of the testing is time-consuming, we have gained confidence that the chassis is delivering as expected, such that we can now move on to looking to exploit the performance potential.
"This afternoon we spent some time doing basic set-up work, running through control systems and characterising the chassis, as a continuation of yesterday's work with Jenson. We also ran through a number of different engine modes on the power unit to check functionality and integration, which went very smoothly and provided us with useful data. Most of the day was spent running at the harder end of tyre compound scale, so we shouldn't read too much into the absolute lap times.
"We completed everything we had planned for our programme for today, and a little bit more besides, so, overall, another very positive day of running under our belts."
"Today's testing target was to do continuous laps at a steady pace so we could gauge the harvest and deployment of the power unit, and perform all energy management system checks," revealed Satoshi Nakamura, Honda R&D Co Ltd's principal engineer. "Thanks to the team's hard work and Fernando's focus in the cockpit, the 119 laps on track gave us plenty of feedback to finish today's planned running programme early. I am pleased to say that we will have lots of data to look through tonight and tomorrow onwards."
"After steps overnight from both factories to work around yesterday's software issues, we ran a positive programme this morning where we were able to collect data on the chassis and power unit side," said Renault's Engine Technical Director, Remi Taffin. "In the afternoon we experienced an early power unit component failure which ended our running. We were able to diagnose the issue easily as it was an area we knew there could be a weakness and we will have a solution in hand."
"The positives from today are immediately apparent," added Jolyon Palmer. "We were able to run a good programme in the morning, covering a lot of what we wanted to do. The car feels good and forgiving and provides a great baseline for us to work forwards. Unfortunately we did stop running early in the afternoon, but my overall analysis of today is most certainly positive."
Tomorrow, Kevin Magnussen will make his debut behind the wheel of the RS16.
"It was very nice to be back in the car today," said Max Verstappen, "especially after three months waiting for this day to arrive! The first laps were very exciting, also because of the new power unit - it was nice to finally discover it and it felt good straight away.
"We did quite a lot of laps, which is very important for the team but also for myself to get comfortable with the car. In general I'd say it was a very positive day. Maybe the time sheets don't reflect this, but we aren't focusing on lap times right now. I'm happy!"
"Today was Max' first day driving the STR11," added Technical Director, James Key, "so it's good to get his feedback and compare it to Carlos'.
"We already had a few small chassis-side updates today, which appear to be working okay. Generally, the reliability was also good. This morning we had a minor electrical issue that needed a reset in the garage and after that it was okay.
"To cover 121 laps on day two of the test is extremely encouraging given that this week is all about putting mileage on the car and concentrating on all the new systems that we've had to introduce quickly. So we can be happy with today's progress."
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