F1 News
Date: 26/February/2011
Sauber, Williams and Force India claimed the top three positions at the end of the Barcelona test, the second of three training sessions before the start of the new world championship season.
Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi set the fastest time of the four-day test courtesy of ‘qualifying’ run on the final morning, with Pastor Maldonado just 0.079sec slower for Williams. Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg was 0.296sec from the top in third.
Sauber’s head of track engineering, Giampaolo Dall’Ara, insisted the team had a genuine need to chase a one-off lap time and was not simply grandstanding.
He said: “Qualifying was actually a weakness of ours in the last two seasons and we have to resolve this. This obviously requires proper practice. Kamui started with the medium compound before he used two sets of soft tyres, and in the end he got his first taste of the 2012 super soft compound.
“He did his fastest lap on the second set of softs. This lap time now stands as the overall fastest for this week, but of course this doesn’t mean much because proper comparisons are never possible during testing with each team running different programmes. In the afternoon we did longer runs for race preparation.”
Williams weren’t so transparent regarding Maldonado’s best time, preferring to talk of “a really productive day's testing to end an excellent couple of weeks”.
Hulkenberg, returning to an F1 race seat from the role of test driver, differed from the leaders in setting his best time on day two of four - track conditions generally improve the longer the cars are on track - before handing over to Scottish team-mate Paul di Resta, who went on to set the sixth fastest time.
Sandwiched between the Force Indias on the final timesheets were Sauber’s Sergio Perez and Red Bull’s reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel - the first of the ‘big hitters’ in fifth.
F1’s main four of Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes tend to play their cards close to their chest in testing, each trying to gauge their true race speed relative to the opposition - without revealing their own potential.
Vettel also set his best time on the second day of testing. The German declared it was a case of “so far, so good”, although he laments the loss of downforce caused by the relocation of the exhaust exits, as required by the 2012 technical regulations.
He said: “I think we are on the right road with the car. The first impressions at the last test were fine. The car reacted the way we expected. I keep talking about the loss of downforce compared to last year, as we don’t have the tools we had, but this is the same for everyone, not just us.”
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso finished the test in seventh, followed by McLaren’s reigning title runner-up Jenson Button, Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher and Ferrari’s Felipe Massa.
Button’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton was eleventh, with Vettel’s team-mate Mark Webber 13th.
Lotus had set the pace in the first test courtesy of Romain Grosjean, but the team - which has signed former champion Kimi Raikkonen for a 2012 F1 return - was dealt a hefty blow in Barcelona when it was forced to abandon testing early on day one.
The team cited an unspecified “chassis issue”, which subsequent reports have suggested was related to the front suspension mounting points.
Team boss Eric Boullier said: “Not running this week has been a tough decision to take, but we feel that our choice is the right one. We have quickly identified the issue with the chassis and our design office has already devised a solution. We will be present at next week's test in Barcelona. We draw faith from the fact that the E20 was quick out of the box in Jerez and showed its reliability there.”
The third and final pre-season test will be held at Barcelona from March 1-4. The racing season will then begin at Melbourne’s Albert Park on March 16-18.
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