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Wed, 3 February, 2010Cheste: Day 3 test round-up
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The first pre-season test of 2010 concluded in Cheste on Wednesday, with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso delighting over 35,000 Spanish fans by clocking the week's fastest time, completing the Scuderia's clean-sweep of the three days. The weather was cool and sunny, with ambient highs of 13°C. Ferrari Fernando Alonso: “I've been waiting for this moment for months and finally it's here. We worked at lot at the works over the last weeks, but I was still missing the experience on the track. Today I concentrated mainly on getting to know the car. There were many new things for me here, such as the Schubert helmet and the Brembo brakes I had never used before. I must say that I felt at ease immediately thanks to Felipe's work during the last days: the car went well and it was fast; it had a good set up, too, which is positive. “It's absolutely impossible to say where we stand compared to the others: I didn't watch them closely, because I had too much work to do with my team. Anyway it's far too early to say anything. There are so many unknown factors and it's a bit like training for football teams, you never know if they're playing with two goalies or only with their second team. It's true, we drove many laps over the last three days. To be competitive you need a reliable car and we're on the right track. The technicians have lots of data now to prepare us the best possible way for the next tests. It's important that the data we had before we came here has been confirmed on the track. We need to continue like this and in the last tests, we need to try to find the car's limit.” BMW Sauber-Ferrari Pedro de la Rosa: “After the roll-out on Monday this was my second day of testing with the new car and I'm happy it was another positive one. We learned a lot about the set-up of the car with these tyres, and also about the direction we have to go in with our work for the future.” Willy Rampf (Technical Director): “We are quite satisfied with the first test. We did exactly 1001 km in total. As well as being reliable, it was important to see that the car responded to changes in the way we expected. The drivers' comments on the car basically were in line with that, which also helps the team to work in the right direction. In the morning we lost around one and a half hours of track time because of an incident with another car. We had to change the floor, the front wing and the engine cover and to prioritise our programme afterwards. But still it was a good day on the track. Again we were lucky with the weather, which gave us very good and consistent track conditions.” Mercedes Michael Schumacher: “I'm very happy to have been back in a Formula One car this week. We had a short run on Monday and then almost a full day today which has been good. The experience has been very positive and the car is running smoothly with just a small hydraulic leak which stopped us slightly early today. The main focus is on reliability and doing as many laps as we can so we're not too worried about looking at the lap times right now. It's a new challenge and a new experience for me this year but knowing Ross so well and working with him again has made it very easy and I feel at home in the team already. I'm feeling fresh and motivated and very positive about the season ahead. I can't wait to be back in the car to continue the programme in Jerez next week.” Toro Rosso-Ferrari Jaime Alguersuari: “It felt good to complete my first ever Formula 1 test session, as last season I was never able to do any testing. I was able to concentrate on understanding the car, without having to think about it in terms of a race weekend. Personally, I felt much stronger in the car, as I have been training hard in the three months since I last drove in Abu Dhabi. Today was a positive experience and I'm looking forward now to next week in Jerez. It's too early to say much about the car's performance, but it felt competitive.” McLaren-Mercedes Renault Vitaly Petrov: “I really enjoyed my first day in the car and everything went well. The car is very impressive compared with a GP2 car and I enjoyed experiencing the power and braking performance. After about 30 laps I was starting to feel comfortable and understanding the limits of the car. It was also my first chance to work with my engineers and so far everything is going really well so I'm happy with the day.” Alan Permane (Chief Race Engineer): “This was Vitaly's first day in the R30 and we concentrated on getting him comfortable and familiar with the car. There's a lot for him to get used to in terms of the brakes, power and the extra downforce, but he adapted well and did a good job. Overall our first week with the car has been successful and we've come away with a lot of valuable knowledge about the car. We're now looking forward to building on this work in Jerez next week.” Williams-Cosworth Nico Hülkenberg: “We covered a lot of mileage today, which is good and allowed me to get used to the car, and my first impressions are all positive. We did a lot of long runs on heavy fuel loads which have given us a good baseline, but we need to keep on working.” Sam Michael (Technical Director): “Today, with Nico, we worked on putting as much mileage as we could on the FW32 and achieved over 500kms at the end of the day, bringing us to a test total of 1,213.5kms. We spent the three days working on set-up and long runs; the main systems on the car are proving reliable and are cooling sufficiently. There are the inevitable minor teething problems to resolve between now and Jerez, but it's been good to get out on track and start work with our new engine partner, Cosworth.” With testing in Cheste now at an end, attention shifts to Barcelona where the years's second pre-season test gets underway on Wednesday 10 February. Unofficial times from Cheste (03/02/2010): |  | ||
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