Barcelona F1 test: Bottas puts Williams on top on super-softs

Valtteri Bottas put Williams on top for the first time in Formula 1 pre-season testing as he set the pace on day two of the second week at Barcelona.

The Finn clocked a 1m23.261s on the super-soft tyres in the afternoon, having completed a series of qualifying simulations on the soft tyres.

Mercedes split driving duties again with Lewis Hamilton's leading time from the morning, set on the softs, good enough for second, 0.361 seconds off the pace.

His team-mate Nico Rosberg focused on running the mediums in the afternoon and ended the day ninth as Mercedes logged an impressive 164 laps.

Ferrari had comfortably its most productive day of testing so far as Sebastian Vettel completed 151 laps while focusing mainly on set-up work on the medium tyres.

The German was fourth fastest, behind Renault's Kevin Magnussen who logged 126 laps.

A small suspension issue confined Jenson Button's McLaren to the garage just before lunch, but he caught up in the afternoon and ended the day fifth, with 121 laps to his name.

Red Bull focused on pitstop practice for much of the morning, with owner Dietrich Mateschitz keeping an eye on the action from the pit wall.

Daniel Ricciardo's attention turned to longer runs in the afternoon and he ended the day sixth, ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr, whose individual tally of 166 was the highest of the day, and Sergio Perez.

Sauber's Marcus Ericsson recovered from a delayed start to log 55 laps before stopping on track with one hour to go.

The red flag was duly shown, but the Swede managed to get back out just before the end of the day.

It was a miserable day for Haas, with Esteban Gutierrez managing just one lap due to turbo problems.

WEDNESDAY TIMES:

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1m23.261s	-	108
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m23.622s	0.361s	73
3	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1m23.933s	0.672s	126
4	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1m24.611s	1.350s	151
5	Jenson Button	McLaren/Honda	1m25.183s	1.922s	121
6	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/TAG Heuer	1m25.235s	1.974s	135
7	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso/Ferrari	1m25.300s	2.039s	166
8	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m25.593s	2.332s	128
9	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m26.298s	3.037s	91
10	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor/Mercedes	1m27.064s	3.803s	79
11	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber/Ferrari	1m27.487s	4.226s	55
-	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas/Ferrari	-	-	1

(source: autosport.com)

Rosberg quickest as Mercedes up their pace in Spain

Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg set the pace on Tuesday, as this week’s final pre-season test got underway at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Rosberg’s best time of 1m 23.022s, set on soft tyres, put him two-tenths clear of Williams’ Valtteri Bottas - who clocked his best lap on Pirelli’s ultrasoft compound.

It was the first time Mercedes have run the soft rubber, the world champions having used only mediums and hards in last week’s opening test. And it was another busy day for the Silver Arrows, with Rosberg notching up 82 laps in the morning and Lewis Hamilton another 90 as he completed a race simulation in the afternoon.

Fernando Alonso brought out the red flags just before lunch when his McLaren stopped on track, but the team bounced back in the afternoon, with the Spaniard totalling 93 laps en route to a highly encouraging third in the times.

Just behind Alonso was Kimi Raikkonen, who spent much of the afternoon in the Ferrari garage thanks to technical problems, and Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat who also lost track time thanks to a brake problem which caused a small fire on his RB12.

It was also a frustrating day for newcomers Haas, who were forced to abandon their programme early thanks to a fuel system problem which left Esteban Gutierrez 11th in the times on just 23 laps.

By contrast, Toro Rosso and Force India enjoyed excellent reliability, with Max Verstappen completing a mammoth 144 laps in his newly race-liveried STR11 and Nico Hulkenberg 121 in his VJM09.

They finished seventh and eighth respectively, just ahead of Felipe Nasr who gave Sauber's 2016 machine, the C35, a solid debut as he racked up 103 laps.

 

Tuesday's unofficial testing times from Barcelona

POS	Driver	Team/Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:23.022		82
2	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes FW38	1:23.229	0.207	123
3	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	1:24.735	1.713	93
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari SF16-H	1:24.836	1.814	72
5	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12	1:25.049	2.027	69
6	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:25.051	2.029	90
7	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11	1:25.176	2.154	144
8	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes VJM09	1:25.336	2.314	121
9	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari C35	1:25.493	2.471	103
10	Kevin Magnussen	Renault R.S.16	1:25.760	2.738	119
11	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:26.661	3.639	23
12	Rio Haryanto	Manor Racing-Ferrari MRT05	1:27.625	4.603	45

Sauber unveil their 2016 car, the C35-Ferrari

Sauber have revealed the new C35-Ferrari with which they will contest the 2016 FIA Formula One World Championship.

The car will hit the track for the first time on Tuesday at the start of the second - and final - pre-season test in Barcelona, Sauber having elected to run an evolution of their 2015 machine during the first four-day session in Spain last week.

"We want to clearly improve," team boss Monisha Kaltenborn said. "Obviously, there's a certain position we'd like to achieve.

"But, to start with, it's important to become established in midfield. Only then are we going to focus on individual positions."

The Swiss team say the car is more 'evolution' rather than revolution compared to last year, but insist that a 'slightly changed philisophy' in terms of design - and in particular a revised approach on aerodynamics - has resulted in 'significant' gains.

In addition, Sauber have been able to package the rear of their car more tightly - aided by Ferrari's new gearbox - and to cut weight in several areas relative to last year.

"For the development of the Sauber C35-Ferrari, we slightly changed the philosophy of how we developed the car aerodynamically," technical director Mark Smith explained. "It sounds little, but the impact on the development of the car is significant."

Sauber are the last team to unveil their 2016 car, although Toro Rosso have not yet revealed their livery for the coming season - they will do so from the Barcelona pit lane on Tuesday morning.

(source: f1.com)

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Haas ‘exceeded their own expectations’ in first test

Haas surprised themselves with how well their new car - and new team - performed during 2016’s opening pre-season test at Barcelona, according to team principal Guenther Steiner.

The American team racked up 281 laps in total over the four days in Spain, and encountered just one significant problem - on day one, when Romain Grosjean suffered a front wing failure along the main straight. The Frenchman was able to return later that afternoon however, and went on to finish an impressive second fastest on the third and penultimate day.

Steiner admits they had been braced for a more problematic start to their first year in Formula One racing, saying: “We are pretty happy with the progress we have made, we didn’t anticipate that we would get all this running - to do a whole race distance was pretty cool today.

“We have a pretty long list of what we have to fix, but we are working on it - there are trucks leaving in the next few hours to fix things. And it’s not like we are saying ‘woah, how do we fix this?’, so we are in pretty good shape.

“That gives a good feeling. Sure we would have liked to have fewer problems, but we expected to run less, to be honest.

“I am a little surprised [by how smoothly it has gone] - but we had our work cut out too. I wouldn’t call the front wing smooth, that was not enjoyable on the first day. But I am positive because of how well we recovered from it: we had a solution and in the afternoon we were out again. We did some measures, and the next day we were up on top speed again.

“I am very happy with how it went, let’s put it like that.”

Steiner said he had also been impressed with how quickly and effectively the team began working together, adding: “I am quite positively surprised with how quickly the team has gelled. The mechanics got used to the car quickly, and you can see the difference between days one and four - you can measure it.

“Things can go wrong - we need to practice pit stops a bit more, because the reality is a different story to doing it in the garage. It is a new experience for the guys [and] our biggest enemy is that we make mistakes just because we are inexperienced.

“But we have a lot of confidence, a lot of data. We are in pretty good shape.”

(source: f1.com)

Raikkonen and Ferrari top final day in Spain

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen led the way in Spain on Friday, as this week's pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya drew to a close.

Raikkonen’s best lap of 1m 23.477s put him almost a second up on nearest rival Daniil Kvyat in the Red Bull. They were the only two drivers to set their times on Pirelli's new ultrasoft tyre compound.

Despite his table-topping effort, Raikkonen admitted he was still unsure as to the SF16-H's ultimate potential.

"I don't know if this is going to be a good car," he said. "No one can tell, but it seems to be a good car even if there are still many things to try out. We don't look at what the other teams do, we do our stuff and get ready. It's up to us to make sure we are in a good position. There is a good potential but we can still improve."

Force India tester Alfonso Celis was an impressive third fastest, his best supersoft-tyred run yielding a time 1.3s down on Raikkonen's best. The rest of the field clocked their quickest laps on either the soft or medium compound.

After troubles earlier in the week, Renault enjoyed a day of excellent reliability with Kevin Magnussen racking up the day's highest lap total - 153 - en route to fourth in the time sheets, just ahead of Toro Rosso's Max Verstappen and Felipe Nasr in the 2015 Sauber.

“I certainly have had a workout over the last couple of days with over 260 laps completed!" quipped Magnussen. "It feels so good to be back in an F1 car and working through the programme and making strong progress. Our race simulation went well and I’m really gelling with the team; it’s a real pleasure to be driving here and I can’t wait to get back in the car on Tuesday.”

Manor rookie Rio Haryanto had an encouraging morning for Manor, only to lose control and nudge his MRT05 into the barriers at Turn 4 early in the afternoon. The Indonesian driver thus finished 11th, but was still happy with his start to the 2016 pre-season.

“It’s been an important week for me and the team here in Barcelona and generally it’s gone well," he said. "I’ve learned a lot about the new car and identified some areas for improvement, to make the second test even more positive for me.

"I did make a mistake this afternoon and the damage to the car could not be repaired quickly, so it’s a shame we didn’t complete our programme today. Generally though, we’ve achieved a lot of mileage and completed some good evaluation work."

The only man behind Haryanto was Fernando Alonso, whose day was limited to a frustrating three laps due to technical problems on his McLaren.

Thursday's unofficial testing times from Barcelona

POS	Driver	Team/Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari SF16-H	1:23.477		78
2	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer RB12	1:24.293	0.816	94
3	Alfonso Celis	Force India-Mercedes VJM09	1:24.840	1.363	75
4	Kevin Magnussen	Renault R.S.16	1:25.263	1.786	153
5	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR11	1:25.393	1.916	110
6	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari C34	1:26.053	2.576	121
7	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:26.187	2.710	86
8	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes F1 W07 Hybrid	1:26.295	2.818	99
9	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes FW38	1:26.483	3.006	54
10	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari VF-16	1:27.802	4.325	89
11	Rio Haryanto	Manor Racing-Mercedes MRT05	1:28.266	4.789	51
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda MP4-31	No time		3