19/02/2010
NEWS STORY
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Mark Webber topped the timesheets on the third day of testing at Jerez de la Frontera as the weather finally took a turn for the better.
Despite heavy rain throughout the night that led to localised flooding, after a damp start the sun finally broke through and the eleven teams were able to get down to business.
Mark Webber was back in the RB6, beginning the day on extreme wet tyres before switching to intermediates and finally dry. A small mechanical issue early afternoon cost the team around two hours of running time, but the Australian was able to get back out with plenty of time remaining and completed a series of short and long runs to test various chassis set-ups and analyse tyre degradation.
"We're certainly showing some good form in terms of reliability," said Webber, "but we always need to work on performance; you never know that the other teams are doing. We're in a good position at the moment to build up to the first race - it's close, but there's also quite a way to go, as other teams have no doubt planned developments for Bahrain. We're doing the work we need to do, in order to understand the car more."
"It's good to finally get some dry conditions and complete some proper runs on dry tyres," added Ian Morgan, the team's head of race engineering, "which we've done very little of with this car so far. We did 115 laps today, which is pretty good; things look promising."
Fernando Alonso was back on track for Ferrari as the Maranello outfit worked on set-ups and comparing car and tyre behaviour in a variety of race situations.
"I'm satisfied by today, because we could drive many miles on the dry," said the Spaniard. "The results are positive, because we got to know the new car better. Also my place in the team is improving from day to day, as is my feeling for the F10. We can confirm that step by step we're arriving at 100%."
At McLaren, Jenson Button was able to spend the majority of the day working on mechanical set-up development. The Englishman - who completed 101 laps - said he was happy with the day's progress, and his engineers are said to be extremely pleased with the extent to which he has been able to establish himself within the team, and the depth and scope of his feedback.
A few minor components will arrive overnight for evaluation tomorrow, but the main aim of the programme remains a continuation of today's set-up development work.
Nico Hulkenberg was the busiest driver today, completing 138 laps on his way to posting the fourth best time of the day.
"Nico spent most of the morning doing pitstop practice with the race team before moving on to a race simulation," said Sam Michael. "He then followed that up with a long run for set-up work. The cause of the problem which forced Nico to stop out on track towards the end of the session was hydraulic, but the part was high mileage. Nico will spend the evening working on set-ups and will continue running tomorrow."
Michael Schumacher focused on developing the set-up of the W01 and evaluating various changes over longer runs. "Today was a nice end to my testing days in Jerez this week," said the German, "and it was great to finally have some consistent dry running. We are on schedule with our programme but at the same time, we are well aware that there is still a lot of work ahead of us. The final test in Barcelona next week will be an important test in this respect and will give us valuable information about the performance of the car."
Adrian Sutil took over the VJM03, the German working through a programme of long and short runs, weight distribution and race preparation.
"Today was our first proper shot at dry running this test and it went pretty well," said Sutil. "In the morning we did a few short runs and some set-up work and then in the afternoon moved on to longer runs and getting more information on the new tyres. At the end of the day we wanted to do a further run but unfortunately a red flag came out so we didn't do as many laps as we would have liked over the whole day. The tyres at the moment are quite difficult to handle as the soft compound grains up very quickly in the low temperatures. The mediums last a bit longer but still grain after 10 or 12 laps. There's no way to avoid it at the moment but I'm not too concerned as I am sure they will handle better in the higher temperatures we'll see in the races."
"After last night's rather dramatic flooding a much better day in Jerez," added chief race engineer, Dominic Harlow. "Adrian looked at weight distribution and car set-up during the session. Dry running today has allowed us to learn some interesting things about the car and the 2010 tyres. We were only really limited by a number of red flag periods."
At Renault, Robert Kubica's programme included set-up and procedural work. "In the morning it was damp so we just did an installation lap to check everything was working and waited for the track to dry," said the Pole. "The conditions were quite windy, which has a big influence on the car, but we were able to test quite a lot of things so I'm pretty pleased with the day."
"Finally the weather improved and we managed to complete a productive day of work," added Alan Permane. "Early on the track was still damp, but it dried out quite quickly and we got some useful set-up work done with Robert, which has taken us in a good direction. We also spent some time doing procedural work and practice starts with a heavy car. Robert also ran a couple of different dry tyre compounds to compare them, which was useful."
Due to a problem with the fuel system on the C29, Sauber driver Kamui Kobayashi completed just 28 laps. "It was obviously not a perfect day," said the Japanese driver, "but I prefer to have a technical problem now rather than in the first race. Although I could only complete a limited number of laps, we learned a few things on which we can build tomorrow."
"The conditions were good today, but unfortunately we weren't able to make the best use of them," added test engineer, Thomas Hunsicker. "We lost a lot of time with a fuel system problem. However, the weather forecast is fine for tomorrow, so we should still be able to complete the main part of our planned programme for this test."
The improved weather meant that Jaime Alguersuari was able to complete a high mileage, running just one tyre compound throughout. On Toro Rosso's development programme was a brake system evaluation, as well as an assessment of a few aero components. The car ran trouble-free from green light to chequered flag.
It was another eventful day for Virgin, which had Lucas di Grassi on duty. No sooner had the team embarked on an intensive list of testing items than an earlier hydraulic issue resurfaced and the British outfit was forced to spend much of the day troubleshooting the problem in the garage rather than making the most of this opportunity for much-needed dry track time. The Brazilian completed just 34 laps and as a result he ended the day 10th out of the 11 cars on track today.
"After being delayed by a small spin this morning, we ran through some critical race-related procedures which we haven't had time to get to so far during testing," said Nick Wirth. "Once the track had completely dried, we started our performance work but we were again frustrated by a reoccurrence of one of our known hydraulic issues. This stopped Lucas from doing more than a handful of flying laps and then finally prevented any more meaningful running, so he didn't get up to speed today.
"The hydraulic issue caught us out on the first day of this test and since Wednesday we've been forced to run conservatively until a new solution is available for the Barcelona test. We'll try and put some more fixes in place tonight to allow us to get some more laps in tomorrow. We're very aware that Lucas has had very little running so far and we hope to improve things so he can get more seat time at the Barcelona test next week."
After his crash on Thursday, Heikki Kovalainen resumed driving duties for Lotus, running the T127 on slick tyres for the first time.
"A reasonably good day today and the best thing was getting our first dry running in," said Mike Gascoyne. "We had a small problem this morning with a clutch sensor but as we wanted to wait until conditions had dried up that suited us well. We concentrated on long runs and started to work with the two tyre types, which we obviously haven't been able to do before, so overall good progress."