Pre-Season Barcelona Test - 8th to 12th March

[sportsman]

Genii are reporting problems with the car on their Twit feed.

KERS issue apparently.

An issue with the KERS has delayed our morning. Vitaly should be back out in an hour or so. The plan is to resume our long runs.

 

[snowy]

Renault have had their share of problems during testing.

Talking of McLaren...

Do I believe I have a car to win the world championship at the moment? I don't. No. But that doesn't mean it won't become a world championship-winning car.

 

[snowy]

The Ferrari has been the most reliable car so far this winter. But surprisingly or not so surprisingly, depending on your point of view, the Red Bull has had a number of problems and spent a lot of time loitering in the pits...


Talking of which:

But in terms of how long we can go in terms of reliability and our true pace, that's an unknown factor for us because in the time we have had we've not been able to maximise things.

That's no-one's fault, just issues you have in testing, and this is testing, this is what it's all about, finding where your weaknesses are so you can build on them and fix them.We've been focusing on those, but we definitely have several issues that are not as easy to rectify as we had hoped.

Looking at how the car has developed over the winter and seeing how it has come out, I was really, really excited getting into it thinking we really had hit the nail on the head. But we've missed that nail a little bit, although it's not like we don't have any other opportunities to get it right.

 

[sportsman]

Problems are an inherent part of testing.Indeed its the whole purpose of it.Apart from McLaren most of the other teams look in reasonable shape in terms of reliability.
Perfomance however is a very different outlook.But until the final upgrades are all fitted and the cars are race prepped which will be in Melbourne only then will we see the true picture.
Looking at what we can see at present the RB7 looks to be the class of the field.Ferrari are none to shabby either.
Lotus Renault are also looking as though they could be a likely contender in the races.

 

[snowy]

Θ. 	Driver		Team 		Best Lap 	Last lap 	Diff	Laps 

1 	M. Webber	Red Bull 	1:22.466 	1:23.446 		34

2 	F. Massa	Ferrari 	1:22.840 	1:24.492 	+0.374 	36

3 	S. Perez	Sauber 		1:23.809 	1:24.658 	+1.343 	30

4 	A. Sutil	Force India 	1:24.334 	1:24.896 	+1.868 	21

5 	J. Alguersuari	Toro Rosso 	1:24.779 	1:28.206 	+2.313 	34

6 	R. Barrichello	Williams 	1:24.919 	1:26.823 	+2.453 	39

7 	M. Schumacher	Mercedes 	1:25.779 	1:28.259 	+3.313 	25

8 	J. D'Ambrosio	Virgin 		1:29.410 	1:29.410 	+6.944 	14

9 	J. Trulli	Team Lotus 	1:34.485 	1:34.485 	+12.01 	6

 

[sportsman]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/89838 Jarno Trulli admits the reliability of his Lotus car is still a concern ahead of the start of the season in Australia.
"Yes, at the moment we still have a lot of stuff that is not correct, and causes some concern," Trulli said in Barcelona following the second day of testing.
"We still have a lot of issues we need to solve for the first race, I hope we are going to solve them and get to Australia reliable enough. This Bahrain cancellation has helped us quite a lot."

 

[snowy]

Vitally Petrov is up and running, thank goodness.

In other news: McLaren are not running today!

 

[snowy]

It is really remarkable how many KERS related problems there have been for so many teams. I'm not just talking about this season, in '09 it was definitely more trouble than it was worth to everybody except McLaren. This year it would appear Ferrari have got theirs sorted though. Let's hope that KERS doesn't keep robbing us of on track action with cars conking out left right and centre...

 

[snowy]

Meanwhile, Petrov has come back in and gone back out again... setting a best time of 1:24.233.

 

[sportsman]

Ferrari are running the Magneti Marelli KERS system.As are Renault Red Bull, Sauber and most of the teams.
McLaren are running the Mercedes system.
Williams are running their own system (not the flywheel version).
Don't forget that this years system is a brand new much lighter version of the 2009 version and is some 10kg lighter.

 

[snowy]

Θ. 	Driver		Team 		Best Lap 	Last lap 	Diff	Laps 

1 	M. Webber	Red Bull 	1:22.466 	1:26.422 		41

2 	F. Massa	Ferrari 	1:22.840 	1:24.868 	+0.374 	41

3 	S. Perez	Sauber 		1:23.529 	1:23.682 	+1.063 	36

4 	V. Petrov	Renault 	1:24.233 	1:25.052 	+1.767 	12

5 	A. Sutil	Force India 	1:24.334 	1:27.689 	+1.868 	24

6 	J. Alguersuari	Toro Rosso 	1:24.779 	1:26.545 	+2.313 	41

7 	R. Barrichello	Williams 	1:24.919 	1:26.442 	+2.453 	49

8 	M. Schumacher	Mercedes 	1:25.779 	1:27.673 	+3.313 	38

9 	J. D'Ambrosio	Virgin 		1:29.410 	1:29.410 	+6.944 	14

10 	J. Trulli	Team Lotus 	1:34.485 	1:34.485 	+12.01 	6

 

[snowy]

10kg! That's a lot... I wonder where all that weights gone?

 

[sportsman]

Better motor/generators and battery improvements.Improvements in KERS control electronics and cooling system.

 

[snowy]

The Sauber of Sergio Perez is getting a wriggle on, he has now done a 1:22.903 during a 4 lap stint.

 

[sportsman]

The Renault of Sergio Perez is getting a wriggle on, he has now done a 1:22.903 during a 4 lap stint.

?

 

[snowy]

 

[sportsman]

Sorry snowy.Couldn't resist.

 

[snowy]

The Sauber of Sergio Perez has now gone to the top of the screens with a 1:22.042.

 

[snowy]

What was that time Sergio had deleted the other day?

Oh, that's right it was a 1:21.176, which was actually just a tad ridiculous.

Sauber are fast becoming my Achilles heel...

 

[snowy]

The new Mercedes W02 doesn't appear to be any quicker today than the old W02 they used yesterday...

Perhaps Schuey is using more fuel for his10 lap runs than Nico used for his 12 lap runs...