Williams Martini Barcelona Test 27:02:2015 Day Two

Driver: Valtteri Bottas
Chassis / Engine: FW37-01 / PU106B Hybrid
Location: Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, 4.655km
Objectives: Aero work and race procedure
Weather: Warm and Dry Air & track temps: 8 - 17ºC / 11 - 26ºC

Day two of the Williams Martini teams Barcelona Test and having see Felipe Massa go quickest on the first day team-mate Valtteri Bottas would get the day underway completing his installation lap. The first timed lap would come from Verstappen with a slow 1m:56.933 prior to pitting. Nasr would set a 1m:27.965 to go quickest while Valtteri was seen running the FW37 with an aero rake prior to pitting and returning to his garage. With forty five minutes run Valtteri had completed eleven laps but had yet to set a time. Rosberg would set a 1m:26.483 to be quickest. Rosberg would improve this time with a 1m:25.730 running on the medium tyre.

Valtteri would take to the track and would move up into second setting a time of 1m:26.909 running on the hard tyre. An hour and a half and Valtteri had completed twenty laps. Valtteri would improve with a 1m:26.790. He was running on the hard tyre and would pit but went straight back out after a nose change. A 1m:25.365 from Rosberg running on the mediums. Valtteri was back out after stopping and would improve with a 1m:26.032, 0.667s off the pace set by Rosberg. Valtteri was running on the medium tyre. Three hours into the day and Valtteri would have completed thirty nine laps. Vettel would move into second using the soft tyre setting a 1m:25.902 see Valtteri now third. A 1m:26.113 from Nasr seeing him fourth. Vettel would move ahead of Rosberg with a 1m:25.339 just over thirty minutes before lunch using the soft tyre.

With the lunch break Valtteri was fourth fastest with Nasr in the Sauber quickest with a time of 1m:24.479, followed by Rosberg and Vettel. Also the 2015 Force India had made its first appearance with Hulkenberg driving. Lunch over and it would be Vettel first back out completing three laps on the hard tyre. Valtteri was back out and would improve on his earlier time setting a 1m:25.789 having completed fifty nine laps.
Valtteri would return to the track running on the medium tyre and move into second with a 1m:24.944. He would pit coming back out on the soft tyre and would improve his time with a 1m:23.995 which is the second quickest time seen at testing at Barcelona. The quickest was set by team-mate Felipe Massa. Valtteri would pit soon after setting his quick time.

The session would come to a stop with a red flag with the Red Bull of Kvyat stopped out on the track. The car would be returned and the session got underway but Valtteri would remain in his garage. Quite a few drivers were doing considerable numbers of laps with Nar and Verstappen completing one hundred and twenty
five. With an hour and a half remaining we would then have Rosberg come out on a set of soft tyres and would go straight to the top of the times with a very quick 1m:22.792. This was 1.2 seconds faster than Valtteri's time on the same tyre. With an hour left Valtteri had completed eighty nine laps and the session would come to stop when it was red flagged with Button stopped out on the track.

Williams indicated that they had finished their programme for the day and the rest of the time would be spent getting the car ready for tomorrow.

Rod Nelson, Chief Test & Support Engineer: We started the day doing some aero work comparing data and driver feel. We then moved onto a few performance based runs. Later in the day we worked on race procedure including some longer runs and grid simulations. We have had some new components that have performed as
expected which has been productive. We have a busy final two days of the test as we optimise the time left until the first race.

Valtteri Bottas: It was nice to focus on performance today and work to get the lap times lower. We are working hard and still have two days left of the test so there is more still to do. The day was busy and we know there is still more to come, I feel positive and the balance was good. We still need to make sure we look at the longer runs and not just the one lap qualifying pace.

WILLIAMS MARTINI RACING will be back on track tomorrow with Felipe Massa behind the wheel of the FW37.

Driver 		 Team 	    	  Best Time 	Best / 
		   				Total Laps
1. N. Rosberg	 Mercedes	  1:22.792	86 / 106
2. V. Bottas	 WILLIAMS MARTINI 1:23.995	71 / 90
3. F. Nasr	 Sauber		  1:24.071	58 / 141
4. S. Vettel	 Ferrari	  1:25.339	57 / 143
5. J. Button	 McLaren	  1:25.590	87 / 101
6. P. Maldonado	 Lotus		  1:26.705	126 / 140
7. M. Verstappen Toro Rosso	  1:26.766	42 / 139
8. D. Kvyat	 Red Bull	  1:26.965	43 / 84
9. N. Hulkenberg Force India	  1:28.412	76 / 77