Williams Jerez Test 13:02:2011 Day Four

JEREZ TEST DAY FOUR
SUNDAY 13 FEBRUARY, 2011
Driver Rubens Barrichello
Chassis / engine FW33-01 / CA320
Location Jerez de la Frontera 4.428km
Objectives Setup and long runs
Weather Cloudy with rain at the end of the day.
Ambient & track temps 17ºC / 19ºC

Rubens Barrichello would put his Williams FW33 on top of the top of the times on the final day of this week's Jerez test, setting the fastest lap achieved during the four days of testing with a 1m:19.832. Rubens best time came during the last of a series of eight lap runs that he would complete early in the day.

The final day of testing at the Jerez circuit and Rubens Barrichello would take to the track and would quickly get down to setting a time. Rubens would set a 1m:22.221 on his opening lap and would improve this with a 1m:21.923. This time was considerably faster than those set on the previous days of testing.

Rubens would again improve with a 1m:20.677. Rubens had completed fourteen laps. He would complete an eight-lap run with his best the session-topping 1m20.677s falling off to a 1m22.131s in the latter stages. He would return to the track setting a 1m:19.832 in the second lap of another series of laps. His times were in the 1m:21s and 1m:22s, averaging 1m:21.7. He would again pit having now completed thirty one laps. A quarter of the way through the day and Rubens was still fastest from Alonso and Buemi.

The first red flag of the day would occur when the Virgin of D'Ambrosio stopped approaching Turn six with an oil pressure sensor problem. After the track was cleared Rubens wou7ld return to the track and start to put in a longer run with lap times in the 1m:27s and 1m:28s. The second red flag would be when Rosberg would stop at Turn seven. Three hours into the day and Rubens was still on the top of the times. The third red flag was from Kobayashi putting his car into the gravel at Turn eight. Prior to this stop Rubens had completed a longer run of sixteen laps, a total of forty nine laps.

With the track opening Rubens was back out. He would continue with his longer run as clouds started to cover the circuit. He would finish a twenty five lap run pitting only to return to the track running on new tyres. He would pit after five laps. By midday Rubens had completed the highest mileage of the day, making up for William's disrupted earlier tests with seventy seven laps this morning. With his stop Rubens had completed eighty four laps.

Rubens would remain in his pit for a considerable time while outside the winds would start to increase. Just before 3PM Rubens would come back out but there would be a few spots of raining falling but this was put aside as Rubens would pull off the track with a hydraulic leak in his FW33 seeing his car brought back to the pits on the back of a trick. This would see Rubens day come to an end but at least he did complete 103 laps.

Sam Michael, Technical Director: Nothing was going to stop us from doing over 100 laps today! After limited running up to now, we concentrated on setup and long runs. Rubens was trying various things to learn about the Pirelli tyres - some worked, some didn't. Now we’ve also gathered some data on the Pirelli wet tyre after a small shower at the end of the session. At the next test we will also have KERS back on the car as we ran without it today.

We did suffer from a hydraulic leak during the middle of the day but overall, it's encouraging that we've had no major fundamental failures on the car – especially considering how tight the package is. All of the faults that have been causing our downtime in the recent days are small things that systems will quickly put right.

Rubens Barrichello: We completed some long runs today and looked at trying some different things on the car. This morning was also the first time we could run a few new sets of tyres and get some momentum. The car performed as it should do so I am happy with that. The day went with minor problems, but we have some good direction and it is great to get some more mileage on the car.

AT&T Williams will be back on track later this week from 18 – 21 February at the Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona. Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado will both be on track on day one of the test.

DRIVER      	 TEAM 		  	TIME       BEST / TOTAL
						   LAPS
1 R Barrichello  AT&T Williams 		1:19.832   23 / 103
2 K Kobayashi 	 Sauber F1 Team 	1:20.601   32 / 86
3 F Alonso 	 Ferrari 		1:21.074   14 / 115
4 S Buemi 	 Toro Rosso 		1:21.213   34 / 90
5 B Senna 	 Lotus Renault GP 	1:21.400   62 / 66
6 H Kovalainen 	 Team Lotus 		1:21.632   42 / 43
7 N Rosberg 	 Mercedes GP 		1:22.103   28 / 45
8 S Vettel 	 Red Bull Racing 	1:22.222   18 / 90
9 J Button 	 McLaren Mercedes 	1:22.278   22 / 70
10 J D’Ambrosio  Marussia Virgin Racing 1:22.985   9 / 44
11 P Di Resta 	 Force India F1 Team 	1:23.111   47 / 99