01/03/2018
NEWS STORY
The last day of the first week of pre-season testing turned out to be the most productive day yet for Mercedes. The team managed to drive the W09 for a total of 600 kilometres, with both drivers running a decent amount of laps.
After tricky weather conditions had compromised yesterday's programme, the team got a lot of work done today and is now looking forward to more productive testing days next week.
Valtteri ran through some system check as the track dried in the morning, then moved onto dry tyres through a race stint to understand the cross-over. Lewis got started on a dry program to understand the car and the tyres, fitting in work for car systems around the program. Today's programme focussed on catching up on the shortage of dry running to date.
"We started in the wet today and got some very useful running done on both the Wet and the Intermediate tyres," said Bottas. "I did a long run of roughly 30 laps on the Intermediates and could really feel the track conditions evolve during that run. We got some insights into the Intermediate tyres and their durability in temperatures like these.
"We later did a cross-over, changing from Inters to slicks tyres in a pit stops. That was very useful for the strategy team, but also for us as the drivers, as you learn a lot when you try to find the grip on the slicks and feel how the car behaves.
"So it turned out to be quite a useful morning despite the wet conditions. I did 60 laps which is what we had targeted. It would have been nice to drive a little more in the dry, but I think we made the most out of these conditions.
"The first week of testing was a tricky start for all the teams, but I think we managed to make the most out of it. Everyone in Brackley and Brixworth has done an amazing job, everything on the car worked so well since day one and the engine is running very smoothly as well. I'm looking forward to next week, hopefully we will come back to normal Barcelona conditions. I'm excited to keep learning about the W09 and maybe next week we will find out how quick it really is.
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"Today has been positive," added Lewis Hamilton, "I'm so happy that I could get in the car and I'm really excited that I could get some running in. It's been the first time today that I've really been out to learn a lot more about the car and its characteristics. I got to see what she's like and stretch her legs a little bit. Driving a new car is like trying to crack a new code: you have to figure out which different techniques you need to get the most out of it. But the W09 feels like last year's big sister.
"Out on track, the Pirelli tyres have been very hard to get working in these unusually cold conditions but they feel pretty good once they are up to temperature. Of course we've got things to learn and things to improve on balance-wise but overall my feeling is positive. I'm really looking forward to next week and to getting back in and learning more.
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Track conditions started very wet from heavy rain overnight, which made early-morning running tricky and meant a slower-than-usual start to the programme. As the track dried out Stoffel Vandoorne was able to quickly and efficiently run through a comprehensive test plan, which included key correlation, component and aero tests that necessitated all-important mileage.
As the track was kept green throughout the traditional lunch break, Stoffel continued consistent running into the mid-afternoon, when the team handed the reins over to Fernando at around 16:00hrs, giving him the opportunity to make up for some of the lost track time yesterday due to bad weather.
Stoffel completed a solid 110 laps and posted the second-fastest time of the day, while Fernando did 51 and finished fifth on the timesheets, bringing McLaren's total for the final day of test one to 161 laps.
"Today was a very productive session for me," said the Belgian. "The day started off a little bit slowly with the bad weather conditions and it took a long time for the track to dry up, but even with that to deal with we still completed a lot of mileage and got a good understanding of the car.
"It feels good to get a good amount of laps on the board after we missed out a bit over the past few days. When the track started to dry I did some very good running and completed a lot of set-up changes, trying to understand our package and how everything works together, and the feeling was positive.
"I finished today with 110 laps and it's been a long time since we've been able to do this. We had time to put Fernando in the car too for the final part of the session, so altogether a very productive day."
"I'm very happy with what has been an impressive day from the whole team in the garage and at the factory to put that amount of laps on the board between Stoffel and myself," added Alonso. "The car ran perfectly all day. We did some interesting runs with some set-up changes, and we keep discovering more about the new package each time, especially with the integration of the Renault engine that was previously unknown for us.
"It was a very productive day for all of us and I'd like to say well done to everyone for working hard to get through a very full and comprehensive test programme today."
"Today we've run reliably all day," said Eric Boullier, "which is a very positive way to end the first week of testing. We had some small glitches in the first two days which caused us to lose a disproportionate amount of track time, and the weather didn't help any of us yesterday, but today everything fell into place.
"I'm happy we've finally been able to run a full test programme today and follow our plan, which has given us some solid data and feedback from the factory. Being ‘winter world champions' on the timesheets is not of interest to us - the important things are mileage and learning - and today we're very satisfied with what we have managed to achieve.
"Recovering mileage was our top priority in order to get back on schedule, and now we can regroup and use the data we've gathered to redefine our test programme for next week. Now we have the initial test programme done and under our belt, the objectives for test two are running a race distance and practising pit stops - we're giving the latter more focus and new equipment this year, so that will be the key."
The 120 laps Sebastian Vettel drove today, brings the total completed by the SF71H over what was effectively just a three day session to 298.
After yesterday's snowfall, temperatures were very definitely on the up today at the Catalunya Circuit: at the end of the session, there had been a high of 12.7 degrees air and almost 15 on track, but damp conditions in the morning still affected the work. It explains why, during the first few hours, Seb used wet weather Intermediate tyres, before switching to new and used Softs for the rest of the day.
The final part of the session was given over to long runs, which yielded a best lap during these tests of 1:20.241.
"The afternoon wasn't exactly ideal," said the German, "because of the track conditions and also a bit of time lost in the garage to sort out a few details. I'd have liked to have driven more, but we can do that next week, when we will start to get a clearer picture."
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At Haas, Kevin Magnussen was back at the wheel, looking to improve upon the 36 laps he logged on Tuesday. He wasted no time getting onto the track when it opened, making three reconnaissance laps on full wets. He transitioned to intermediates at approximately 11:30 a.m., with two eight-lap runs.
Haas worked through lunch and shortly after 1 p.m., the track was dry enough for slicks. Magnussen donned a used set of soft tires just before 1:30 p.m. and tip-toed around the track, as it remained slippery. A more involved, six-lap run that began shortly after 1:40 p.m. yielded a quick time of 1:24.286 on his 30th lap.
It was a sign of things to come, as in each subsequent stint, Magnussen bettered his lap time, first with a 1:22.768 on his 35th lap and then with a 1:21.764 on his next lap followed by a 1:21.509 on his 38th lap. His 39th lap brought him down to 1:21.477 before an even quicker tour on his next go-round generated a 1:21.135.
He made the switch to supersofts at approximately 3 p.m. He performed back-to-back seven-lap stints before a nine-lap run, with a 1:21.509 on his 56th lap during the second stint being the best. But it was during the last 90 minutes of the session where the Dane pushed ever harder, recording a 1:20.640 on his 73rd lap and a 1:20.317 on his 81st lap.
A three-lap stint on Yellow softs followed by a 10-lap drive on supersofts ended the day.
When it was all done, Magnussen had completed 96 laps to log 446.880 kilometres (277.678 miles). His quickest time of 1:20.317 put him fourth overall among the 15 drivers who took to the track.
Haas' total for the first week of testing was 187 laps and 870.485 kilometres (540.893 miles), with Magnussen accounting for 132 laps and 614.46 kilometres (381.807 miles).
"It was a very good day," said Magnussen. "We got a lot of laps and, finally, the weather decided to behave. It was nice to feel the car and get the first touch of the car's balance and performance. I'm looking forward to continuing the work next week. We're happy with what we're seeing and we have something to work with."
"A solid day," added Guenther Steiner. "I think it's a good end to a difficult testing session. The first few days were compromised by the weather, but today we got 96 laps in. We made some progress and we understand the car a little bit better. Next week we need to start from where we are now, get better, and then work toward being ready for Australia."
Check out our Thursday gallery from Barcelona, here.
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At Renault, Nico Hulkenberg started his day on a damp but drying track using Pirelli's wet, intermediate and then the soft tyres. Running into the cancelled lunch-break, Nico completed 49 laps with a best time of 1:22.507. Carlos ran later in the day in improved conditions, completing 60 laps with a best time of 1:20.940, the sixth fastest of the day.
"We struggled to get some clean running and temperature into the wet and intermediate tyres this morning so it wasn't as productive as we'd like," admitted Hulkenberg. "The track did take a long time to dry out, with the new surface and still pretty cool conditions, so I only managed one dry, but still damp, run at the end of my time in the car today. Next week we're hoping for much better from the Spanish skies."
"There was a pretty good window this afternoon where I could do a couple of long runs and start to get a feel for the R.S.18," added Sainz. "Obviously there's still work to do to get the car fully to my liking after this week's weather delays, but at least we could complete some interesting mileage through long runs today and because of that, I'm pretty pleased with how it went. I'm looking forward to next week where we can really get into testing and explore set up directions."
"This week we've seen the first glimpse of the Renault R.S.18's potential on track," said Cyril Abiteboul, "albeit in very cold, wet and unrepresentative conditions. We managed the majority of our running on the first morning and then the final afternoon, with a lot of rain, sleet and even snow in-between, so it hasn't been a normal week of testing for anyone. Obviously, it's very early days in our understanding of the car, but both Nico and Carlos have given positive feedback.
"Our teams back at Enstone and Viry-Chatillon have worked tremendously hard on this car and their attention to detail has been illustrated by our positive lap tally when conditions allowed. Next week we are targeting a significantly higher lap tally."
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"It's been a very difficult week weather-wise," said Paddy Lowe at Williams, "but actually, we're very happy to have made the most of the conditions we had. We've recorded huge amounts of data and we've achieved a lot of very reliable running without any failure and we've had our first look at the performance of the car on laps, although the final afternoon was the only day of anything like reasonable temperatures for running a racing car.
"A great job has been done by the team considering this car had not even fired up a week ago and a great job by Lance, Sergey and Robert to manage the car in such difficult conditions without causing any damage. We look forward to coming back next week for hopefully some warmer weather when we gear up for some more representative performance testing."
"It was still quite a good, productive week," said Sirotkin. "Of course, it was not ideal in some aspects, but I believe we squeezed the best out of the situation. It was nice to feel how the new car behaves on the track in different conditions. We haven't got the full picture of the car yet but I think we can see some strong points and I believe we can make them even stronger, as well as correct the weaker parts. Next week, we will have better weather and a better chance to do this. Today, we collected as much data and knowledge as possible about the car. I got some feeling for the car with quite a good amount of consistent wet running, so a reasonable amount of information about the car and myself."
"My day was pretty good," added Stroll. "I felt good in the car, the balance feels good. It's not easy to warm the tyres, it takes quite some time to get them working but it shouldn't be this cold during the year. My initial thoughts are the car feels pretty good. We have a lot of work to do and a lot to understand. The seat time is good, building confidence in the car. It's a new car, with new balance, a lot has changed. I did quite a few laps this afternoon, that's always positive in a first test. Next week, it's going to be a busier week than predicted because of the conditions this week. It's been a big off-season for everyone and the expectations are high coming into this year. We definitely want to take a step forward. We know the competition's difficult from other teams but that doesn't bring us down, it should give us more motivation to go out and be the best we can be."
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"With the snow and rain yesterday, I finally got my chance in the new car today," said Sergio Perez. "After three months away from the track, it's always a special moment when you feel the power of an F1 car again. It really makes you smile. It's just a shame the weather has been so poor this week. It's limited our mileage and made things a bit more difficult. Today was all about getting through the run plan and helping the team understand the car more. I think next week will give me a better idea of what we can expect when we arrive in Melbourne."
"The damp track this morning forced us to delay most of our running until the track conditions started to improve," revealed chief race engineer, Tom McCullough. "When the circuit was suitable for dry tyres, we fitted a rake to the car and resumed the aero programme, adding to the data we gathered on Tuesday. We worked through various parameter changes and all the usual tasks for the first week with a new car. It's not been the easiest of weeks, largely due to the weather, but we are gradually ticking off the jobs on the schedule. Next week's programme will focus more on tyre evaluation and performance running."
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Max Verstappen brought Red Bull's first week of pre-season testing to close today in a stop-start session that was again affected by the conditions at the Circuit de Catalunya and by niggling technical issues.
In the morning the team opted for limited running on the damp and cold circuit, with Max putting in 18 laps and focusing on short runs and aero testing. With the track drying in the afternoon more aero work was conducted before a mechanical issue affected running. A late spin for Max then saw his day end prematurely.
"Today we didn't do any performance laps," said Verstappen, "but when you have conditions such as this, which are not ideal, then it's best to just focus on making sure everything is working in the way you want and that the data you're getting correlates to what is happening in the wind tunnel and that's what we did.
"We had a couple of little hiccups today and then in the afternoon I had a little moment where I went into the gravel, tried to the reverse but it got stuck. However, I'm quite happy with the car so far, and maybe the second week will show a bit more how we compare against our rivals. I certainly hope it's a bit sunnier next week."
"Not an ideal end to what has been a pretty tricky week," admitted Head of Race Engineering, Guillaume Rocquelin. "In the early morning the track took a long time to get to a condition where we felt there was any point in running, and then we focused mainly on aero work. We were finally able to run on dry tyres from about 2pm onwards. We had a reliability issue in the afternoon, and Max had a spin, which led to us calling a halt, but the issues we had are easy fixes and in general we're pretty happy with how the car runs, so now it's about building on what we have.
"The real difficulty this week was in not being able to maximise the time available and that was a bit frustrating. However, we are reasonably happy with what the RB14 delivered in its first outing and we now have a bit of time back at base to work on next week's test, when hopefully the weather conditions will be a bit kinder."
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"It was really satisfying to have done so many laps today!" said Pierre Gasly. "It's only the second day for me at testing in the car so I was still learning many things about it and we still need to find the right directions to maximise the performance for Melbourne. It was really important for the team and also for myself to be able to learn so much! We'll have to go through everything in the next couple of days before the second test, but it was a really positive day overall. I think the reliability of the engine is great -147 laps is more than double a race distance and we didn't have any issues.
"Hopefully we can carry on like this. I would say the first feeling with the car is positive - I'm happy with both the car and the engine. We should have a couple of new developments to test for next week, so it's a process where we will try to improve the car day by day, to get ready as much as possible for the first race."
"It was good to have some normal running today," added James Key, "although we had wet conditions to begin with which took a surprisingly long time to dry during the morning but then dried very quickly over lunch time. That allowed us to get some wet running with Pierre in the morning and do a little bit of work on the inter tyres, understand how those tyres were behaving and what setup implications there could be. We made some headway again on a few ideas on the car and Pierre seemed to be happy with the car in wet conditions. In the afternoon the plan was to try and catch up a little bit on the basic setup parameters that we wanted to study in preparation for next week. We worked through a programme of some basic tests and learnt some useful directions to pursue further next week. We finished off with a series of long runs that permitted us to get our first view of the car and tyres over a longer run and slightly better track conditions. In that respect, I think it's been a good day and we'll go into T02 now with some development items arriving and start getting into the details of the cars' performance. Our mileage accumulation plans have general worked well and been useful for this week.
"I think it's been an excellent test for Honda - they came here with a completely new engine after a lot of preparation work on their side, and on our side with them too. To come out of the test with no issues at all on the power unit side has been an excellent result and a situation we have never had during winter testing. With 147 laps today I think that's a record for the power unit era for Honda - we have been testing for effectively only three days so this is an outstanding achievement."
"As the track surface dried, we were able to switch to slick tyres around midday and with warmer temperatures, we were finally able to run in suitable conditions," said Toyoharu Tanabe, Honda F1 Technical Director. "By the end of the day, Pierre had completed 147 laps, making it a very productive session. In the dry, we were able to start work on finding the best settings for the PU, as well as continuing with function checks. We also completed some longer runs, which meant we could gather valuable data for race conditions.
"I am reasonably satisfied with the way Test 1 went, as we were able to complete most of our programme without having any issues. I feel we have taken a positive first step in this very important first test as Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda."
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On the final day, Marcus Ericsson completed a total of 79 laps; Charles Leclerc took over the cockpit of the C37 in the afternoon, completing 59 laps.
"Overall, it has been quite a productive first week of winter testing for us," said Fred Vasseur, "taking into consideration that we have been facing tricky weather conditions. We have gathered some useful data, which will allow us to establish the strengths and weaknesses of our new car, and prepare our programme for the second week of testing.
"Our rookie, Charles Leclerc, has developed a first real sense of what the car feels like on track, and is becoming accustomed to all of the procedures very quickly. Marcus Ericsson has been able to give useful insight into the progress that has been made in comparison to last year, and the team is coming together very nicely. I look forward to next week."
"Today, we had the opportunity to gain insight into the behavior of our new car in wet conditions, while testing different tyre compounds," said Ericsson. "All in all, this first week has been quite insightful, despite the limitations that we faced due to the difficult weather conditions here in Barcelona. I have learned a lot, and look forward to continuing to make positive progress next week."
"It was great to be back on a race track this week," added Leclerc. "I was able to learn a lot about all of the new procedures and am starting to feel more comfortable in the car. The weather conditions were not ideal this week, but we made the most of it. As they were improving this afternoon, we completed a number of tests, which was a positive end to this first test. I can't wait to get back into the car next week."