Last test day of 2010

So the last day of testing before the season starts has arrived. The weather here at the track is warmer than yesterday already, but quite windy.
With just over 30 minutes until the session starts the teams have all had breakfast and started the engine warming procedure prior to firing them up in a few minutes.
Hopefully today won’t be hit with as many red flags as yesterday, but remember anything can, and usually does happen during testing.

Have we learnt anything from the Barcelona test?

Short answer… No!

Some things we already knew have been reaffirmed;

• When it’s damp cars slide off the track.
• Pit stops without refueling are fast – sub 3 seconds
• The new teams, those that turn up in Bahrain anyway, are slower than everybody else, but not by as much as they could be.
• The Spanish love Alonso in a Ferrari.
• The whole world wants to know what Schumacher is capable of.
• The Red Bull Energy Station team do a lovely lunch – Thanks, Vielen Dank, Gracias & Merci

Some of the teams have had deliveries of components over the past couple of days, so we may see some changes tomorrow but I doubt it.

Once tomorrow is done there are only 12 days until we regroup in Bahrain for the first race of the season where I suspect 30% or more of the field won’t finish, and there may be a few surprises in store.

Barcelona day 3. Lunchtime

So the rain which was originally forecast for yesterday has finally arrived and caused 2 red flags this morning. However it’s nowhere near as bad as the past 2 weeks in Jerez, and the official weather thingy here hasn’t actually got wet enough to register any measurement, so I think we’ll call it a sprinkling.

Sir Richard Branson has been here all morning having held an early morning press conference and photocall for the Virgin Racing team. He feels that F1 can be fun as well as competitive for $40million a year. I wonder if we’ll be seeing a Virgin Party Palace as well as the Red Bull Energy Station at the European races this year? He has also made his feelings clear about the statements made by Ferrari about the new teams over recent days.

Trulli in his Lotus has moved up the time sheets this morning having started to do some race distance runs.

The times at the lunch break are:

1. Rosberg 1:20.686
2. Buemi 1:21.413
3. Sutil 1:22.951
4. Massa 1:23.490
5. Barrichello 1:23.976
6. Trulli 1:25.059
7. Kobayashi 1:26.216
8. Petrov 1:26.346
9. Button 1:36.667
10. Glock no time
11. Vettel no time

Barcelona day 2 timings

1. N Hulkenberg – AT&T Williams 1:20.614 99
2. F Alonso – Ferrari 1:20.637 134
3. P de la Rosa – BMW Sauber 1:20.973 114
4. V Liuzzi – Force India 1:21.056 90
5. S Vettel – Red Bull Racing 1:21.258 125
6. J Alguersuari – Toro Rosso 1:21.571 104
7. M Schumacher – Mercedes GP 1:21.689 85
8. L Hamilton – McLaren 1:22.152 93
9. R Kubica – Renault F1 1:24.912 53
10. J Trulli – Lotus 1:25.524 70
11. T Glock – Virgin 1:25.942 52

Lotus Racing. Barcelona day 2

A productive day for Lotus Racing as Jarno Trulli took the Lotus Cosworth T127 challenger onto the Barcelona track and completed another 70 laps. With strong sunshine and dry weather conditions, the Lotus Racing team were again first out on track and ready to begin testing, developing and improving the car.

Chief Technical Officer Mike Gascoyne gave his end of day round up; “It was a productive day in terms of set up direction with Jarno. We were able to identify some problems with the set up in the car and establish clear direction to improve it. We still have a long way to go, and a lot of time to come from the car.

“ We had a couple of minor hydraulics issues which stopped the car on track, but nothing major, so all in all it was a productive day and we’re aiming to continue in the same vein tomorrow.”

Jarno Trulli again picks up the wheel for day three of testing, and the team is looking forward to developing and progressing the car. Heikki Kovalainen then takes over on Sunday, for the final day of testing.

Barcelona day 2

Day 2 here in Barcelona has dawned with clear skies and the temperature is already up to 12c. The teams are firing up the cars after overnight work and we are expecting some low fuel runs from pretty much everybody today which will give us our first real look at the overall pace of each driver. Yesterday Mark Webber was the fastest out on track, but will Red bull be able to repeat this today? Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are out for Mercedes, Mclaren and Ferrari. It should be interesting to see how the three world champions compare, on this their last test day running together before Bahrain and the 2010 season starts 2 weeks from today.

Lotus Racing. Barcelona day 1

76 more laps for Fairuz Fauzy on the first day of the Barcelona test marks another satisfactory day for Lotus Racing. In dry, sunny conditions the team completed all its objectives for the day and are now looking forward to seeing Jarno Trulli take over driving duties tomorrow and Saturday.

Chief Technical Officer Mike Gascoyne gave his thoughts on the day’s on track action, saying “It was a very productive day – 76 laps with no mechanical worries on the car. In the morning we conducted some engine LAMDA running which we completed successfully. We ran through a series of system set up checks, completed our first starts and evaluated a number of other control systems on the car, as well as monitoring temperatures and pressures throughout the car.

“All in all this was a successful day both on the track and we ticked off a lot of behind the scenes tasks ahead of the first race. Fairuz did a very good job today, with no mistakes, and we were able to complete our whole program.”

Jarno Trulli takes over tomorrow with more dry running ahead of the Lotus Racing team.

Barcelona day 1 final times

With the day ending under a Jenson Button caused red flag i’m not entirely sure if we have learnt anything or not. Webber has been consistently fast all day and ended the day 0.920s ahead of Hulkenberg. 6.5s separates the field, but that is mainly because Di Grassi wiped out his Virgin earlier this morning, and the Lotus of Fauzy is just slow.

1. Webber 1:21.487
2. Hulkenberg 1:22.407
3. Rosberg 1:22.514
4. De la Rosa 1:23.144
5. Button 1:23.452
6. Liuzzi 1:24.064
7. Alonso 1:24.170
8. Petrov 1:24.173
9. Alguersuari 1:24.869
10. Di Grassi 1:27.057
11. Fauzy 1:28.002

Barcelona test. Day 1

The first test day here in Barcelona has started with the sun out and the teams eager to get out on the track after the wet/dry running in Jerez for the past 2 weeks. The alonso fans are starting to trickle into the main grandstand, but not in the numbers we saw in Valencia. However I suspect this will change on Saturday.
The session has already had a couple of red flags, the most recent of which was caused by alonso stopping out on track.

Jerez weather

Just in case anybody has been following the various news/twitter feeds from here in Jerez and you’re wondering about how wet it actually is, I now have the answer. I have spoken to the weather guys here and have averaged out their rain readings and so far today (upto 1pm) we have had a grand total of 0.2mm of rain. I find it incredulous that such a miniscule amount of water can cause so many problems for the multi-million dollar machines. All we need is a few cars to go out on track and just try. The track will dry out quickly and the teams can use the short amount of test time they have fully.