08/03/2017
NEWS STORY
Carlos Sainz: "I think today was a much better day compared to last week and we've definitely made a step forward in terms of reliability. Our test programme this week is a very tight one as we still have a lot of catch-up to do, so it's therefore still too early to make any conclusions. Even though we lost a bit of valuable track time, I'm happy with the fact that I was able to do so many laps, because that's what testing is all about!"
Jody Egginton (Head of Vehicle Performance): "A day of mixed fortunes really, with some very good steps forward made with the set-up but, at the same time, we have been dealing with some small but frustrating background issues which have broken up our running and cost some track time. Evaluating what we have learnt today, we can say that feedback from the development items tested has been interesting. It's provided some valid directions for the short-term but also a useful basis for further medium-term. This is good to see, as it allows a constant stream of development items from early on in the season onwards.
"The afternoon session was spent conducting various tests and run configurations on a couple of different compounds, focusing on understanding the tyres. Looking forward to tonight's activity, the mechanics, who have been putting in a massive effort in the last days, have a very busy night ahead of them preparing the STR12 for tomorrow's running. At the same time, the engineers will be working through the data from today in order to optimise the starting set-up and test plan for tomorrow when Daniil gets back into the car for his final day of pre-season testing."