F1: Mercedes Fastest As Testing Resumes In Barcelona

Formula 1

F1: Mercedes Fastest As Testing Resumes In Barcelona

Mercedes' Nico Rosberg sets the fastest time as preseason testing moves to Barcelona...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted February 19, 2013 Barcelona (ESP)

Nico Rosberg drives his Mercedes Tuesday in Barcelona. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

After a 10-day break since Jerez, F1 testing action resumed in Barcelona Tuesday with the second of the three winter sessions.

The first appearance of the new Williams FW35 was the big story of the day – not least because of questions from rivals about the legality of its exhaust outlets – while Fernando Alonso had his first outing in the Ferrari F138 after missing Jerez.

Nico Rosberg gave Mercedes some encouragement by setting the fastest time of the day, but that was tempered by more reliability problems for the W04. An early gearbox problem restricted the German to 54 laps.

“We had a mixed day today with some laps lost this morning,” he said. “However, we were able to work through a good program this afternoon and, of course, it’s always nice to be quickest at the end of the day.

“In general, I feel happy and comfortable in the car and it feels better than the last time we were here at this track. There is still some work to be done on tire degradation, and our program this afternoon was helpful in understanding that.”
Lotus was again competitive, with Kimi Raikkonen setting the second-best time of the day, just 0.007s shy of Rosberg’s best. However, he too had a difficult day, and completed only 44 laps due to telemetry data logging problems.

“It wasn’t an ideal day in terms of the number of laps we completed, but the car feels strong and we’ve made some good progress,” said Raikkonen. “After Jerez it’s nice to be at a circuit where we race, and the E21 is definitely a step in the right direction. There’s lots of work yet to do this week, but I’m happy with where we are at the moment.”

Alonso caught up for lost time by running 110 laps in the F138, the highest total of the day, as the red car again showed good reliability. The top three times were all set on medium tires at the end of the day.

Sebastian Vettel was fourth for Red Bull while there was a big gap of 0.9s to Pastor Maldonado in fifth with the new Williams, which logged 86 laps – the second highest total of the day, despite some time lost with a water leak.

“It was a good day today,” said Maldonado. “I felt happy after the first run this morning and we then completed a busy day of testing. It was great to get out on track in the new car. The FW35 feels like we have made a real step forward. There is still a lot to discover with the new car, but this is a good starting point for us for the season.”

Daniel Ricciardo carried on Toro Rosso’s good work in Jerez with a solid sixth place.

“This was my first time back in the car since the second day in Jerez and we had a full program of things to try,” said the Aussie. “Because of some of the changes we chose to make to the car setup, this involved quite a bit of time in the garage. Therefore, this was not a day for a lot of laps.

“I’m glad I’m driving tomorrow, because I feel I need to get a better understanding of what we started today. We have some homework to do overnight, but we know which direction to go in.”

Sergio Perez was seventh for McLaren as he continued to conduct routine familiarization work, while Paul Di Resta and Esteban Gutierrez were eighth and ninth, respectively.

"It was quite a tricky day with the tires,” said the Mexican. “We were struggling with tire management and, as a result, degradation. We tried different things in the morning, but then in the afternoon we had some issues with the setup of the car. The good thing is we have a lot of data to analyze. This will be the basis for us to understand everything.”

Meanwhile, Caterham’s Charles Pic lost track time to a gearbox problem, and ran only 49 laps.

Pos Driver Car Time Laps
1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:22.616 54
2. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus 1:22.623 44
3. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:22.952 110
4. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1:22.965 66
5. Pastor Maldonado Williams 1:23.733 86
6. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:23.884 73
7. Sergio Perez McLaren 1:24.124 77
8. Paul Di Resta Sahara Force India 1:24.144 82
9. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:25.124 68
10. Max Chilton Marussia 1:26.747 65
11. Charles Pic Caterham 1:27.534 49

Adam Cooper notched up his 28th season as a racing journalist in 2012. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.