Red Bull Racing Final Barcelona Test Round Up
By Ian Lockwood
March 4 2013
Daily round ups from the final four days at Barcelona
Day 1
The final pre-season test kicked off today at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya and, as widely predicted, the weather played a major part in proceedings.
Starting on a damp track the morning session was given over to running on intermediate and full wet tyres as overnight wet weather turned into heavy rain before lunch. The downpours abated after the break, however, and Mark Webber was able to put in the day’s fastest lap just before the end of the session. Afterwards, Mark admitted that the rain hadn’t been the only difficulty, with strong winds also making running tricky.
“It was pretty heavy, I must say. There was a big tailwind down to Turn One,” he said. “And in other sections it was pretty dusty. The level of wind wasn’t trivial but to be honest it was tricky enough anyway because of the greasy conditions on the track. We only got one hour at the end of the day in more stable conditions. We opted to put on a couple of sets of tyres at the end and see how it went and it was OK. We’ve still got more to come, but that was the most we could get done in a short limited programme in dry conditions at the end of the day.”
Race Engineering Co-ordinator Andy Damerum said: “We’re pretty pleased with how it went today, especially after the start to the session. It rained overnight and the track was quite damp this morning. That obviously forced us to adapt the run plan a bit, but we did get a lot of mileage on the full wet tyres, which was very good, as we didn’t run those last week. In terms of what we went through, it was mostly just mechanical and set-up work. Overall, a good day and now we’ll have to see what the weather has in store for us tomorrow when Seb will be driving.”
Driver: Mark Webber
Car: RB9
Laps: 90 laps
Best time: 1:22.693
Circuit length: 4.655km
Fastest lap: M. Webber (1:22.693)
Day 2
Sebastian Vettel’s penultimate day of winter testing was something of a mixed bag with the poor weather causing a few delays to the champion’s work in the morning.
Once up and running, however, Seb got through a busy programme of set-up work and managed to fit in some evaluation of test items. With drier conditions after lunch, the afternoon was about refining set-up on his way to the day’s fourth-fastest time.
“I didn’t do that many laps today, but to be honest the weather wasn’t great and it was a pretty rough day in terms of the wind,” he said. “It’s very cold as well. The tyres aren’t really working properly and I think everybody is suffering the same problem, struggling to make the tyres last for more than a lap. It’s difficult to compare things you are testing and also to compare yourself to others.”
Race Engineering Co-ordinator Andy Damerum said: “Once again the weather was the main inhibitor today. This morning the conditions weren’t great, so it was a bit of a slow start for everyone. The track was pretty greasy and because the wind wasn’t as severe as yesterday, it stayed pretty damp all morning. That meant a lot of the time we were in that crossover between intermediate and wet tyres, which is tricky. However, in a strange way it actually helped us in the morning as we had some parts we wanted to test and the conditions allowed us to spend the time in the garage getting that sorted to no great detriment to our running. In the afternoon we were able to move on to dry tyres, but the wind was quite strong at times and just as with Mark yesterday, that didn’t make life easy for Seb. Having said that I think we got quite a lot of work done today, especially in gathering data on the items we wanted to test. The weather is supposed to be much better tomorrow with a balmy 14 degrees forecast, so hopefully Mark will get a smooth run on his last day of testing.”
Driver: Sebastian Vettel
Car: RB9
Laps: 65 laps
Best time: 1:22.743
Circuit length: 4.655km
Fastest lap: R. Grosjean (1:22.716)
Day 3
Mark Webber’s final day of pre-season testing got off to a slow start this morning as the team was delayed in the garage with overnight changes to the car.
Once on track, Mark concentrated on evaluating the changed items and ended the day with seventh-fastest time.
“I would obviously have liked to get a few laps in today, but that’s the way it goes sometimes in testing,” said Mark. ”We had a few small issues with the car today which delayed us a couple of times and while it wasn’t ideal I think we still learned plenty.
“In terms of the overall feeling at the end of my spell of testing, I think we’ve done well and we have made a step forward. As I’ve said before it’s very difficult to see a real pecking order. We’ve just always been focused on what we have to do and not really looked too hard at anyone else. The important thing now is just to get out to Melbourne and get on with the racing. We have some work to do, for sure, and we have a few things we need to iron out, but that’s the same for everybody.
“Looking at the first race, I think it’s going to be a tight grand prix. There are a lot of quick cars out there and hopefully we have one of them. However, Melbourne is a very particular race, with very specific demands, so we’ll treat it as one race, then go to Malaysia and see how things shake up there. The season moves fast and you have to prepare for every race.”
Race Engineering Co-ordinator Andy Damerum said: “It wasn’t the easiest day for us today. We had quite a bit of work to do overnight with some changes we wanted to make and that delayed us a little bit in getting out in the morning. We had quite a few things we wanted to evaluate today. However, we had much better weather today so when Mark was out we were able to get through quite a lot of work. The guys in the garage did a phenomenal job in getting everything right. Seb’s back in the car tomorrow for the final day of testing here in Barcelona.”
Driver: Mark Webber
Car: RB9
Laps: 59 laps
Best time: 1:22.658
Circuit length: 4.655km
Fastest lap: L. Hamilton (1:20.558)
Day 4
Sebastian Vettel today brought the curtain down on Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s pre-season test programme in Barcelona, with an untroubled 100-lap run during which the team focused on race preparations. Afterwards, the triple world champion said that after a successful winter the team is looking forward to the 2013 season opener in Australia in two weeks’ time.
“We’re in good enough shape I think. Overall testing has been good for us and we didn’t have too many problems,” said Sebastian. “But if you sum up all three tests I think all the teams were linked in to what the tyres could do and at times it was extremely difficult to read the set-up changes and find a direction because the tyres were always pretty challenging.
“In terms of how we did this week, well, over the past couple of days we maybe didn’t tick all the boxes that we wanted to but we have bit of time left to prepare before the season starts. The target is there to improve and we will do that. I’m looking forward to Melbourne now and can’t wait for the racing to begin.”
Race Engineering Co-ordinator Andy Damerum said: “We had a good day to finish off winter testing. We had the best conditions of the pre-season so we were able to get quite a lot done. We started with a whole session of data gathering today on some of the components we had put on the car. It was a tricky day because we were evaluating multiple aerodynamic elements, so it was pretty busy work. But not too bad for the final day.
“Testing overall has been good. It’s impossible to give any indication of where we are in the mix at the moment, to be honest. We think we’ve done some good work during all three tests but you never know until Saturday in Melbourne and that’s what we’ll focus on now.”
Driver: Sebastian Vettel
Car: RB9
Laps: 100
Best time: 1:22.514
Circuit length: 4.655km
Fastest lap: N. Rosberg (1:20.130)
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round up is a form of weed/grass killer
bulls generally are housed in padocks with grass
if the round up goes onto the grass the bull isnt happy
please dont jinx the bull with reference to the round up
Arrigato!
kind regards
f1man
andos
and adios!
Mark WEBBER 9
hit wonder :-)
Should have been 12 wins except vettel stuffed up
Japan 2007- vettel runs into back of webber during SC ...WTF
Turkey 2010- vettel decides to drive into webber
Malaysia 2013- vettel decides he is just too awesome for team rules
I am a proud Mark Webber Fan
I am also proud that we won the war
I am also a Carlton supporter
I think, therfore i am!
"When you talk, you are repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new." - Dalai Lama
i'm hearing you and agree- not enough
Mark WEBBER 9
hit wonder :-)
Should have been 12 wins except vettel stuffed up
Japan 2007- vettel runs into back of webber during SC ...WTF
Turkey 2010- vettel decides to drive into webber
Malaysia 2013- vettel decides he is just too awesome for team rules
I am a proud Mark Webber Fan
I am also proud that we won the war
I am also a Carlton supporter
I think, therfore i am!