Testing Jerez – The Assessment of the Four Days

Four days of testing are clearly not enough to accurately determine the hierarchy of the season, especially when it’s the first sessions of the season. Between misinformation and groundwork, the teams, often on different schedules, take pleasure in keeping their cards close to their chests. For this start of the year, all teams were present at Jerez, even though Williams F1 was the only one running with its 2012 car while awaiting the presentation of the FW35 on February 19 before the first test session in Barcelona.

The ranking of the best laps by driver:

At the top of the timesheet, Felipe Massa’s Ferrari widened the gap, dropping below the 1:18.0 mark. A result reminiscent of last year when Nico Rosberg, equipped with the 2011 single-seater, was also the only one to make a time in the 1:17 range. Needless to say, there’s nothing definitive to be drawn from such a performance and gap.

Behind the Paulist, the two Lotus drivers, Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean, seem to be in good form, like last season, where promising tests foreshadowed a successful season. The men from Enstone frame the Force India of Jules Bianchi, who took advantage of his half-day of testing to make an impression while waiting for the decision of the Indian team regarding their second driver.

From fifth to eleventh place, we find Sebastian Vettel as well as the two Mercedes and the two McLaren cars. It should be noted that among the top ten drivers, two “performances” stand out: the overall fifth-fastest time achieved by the reigning triple world champion on hard tires on the fourth day, but more so the overall ninth-fastest time achieved by Jenson Button on hard tires on the very first day when the track was not yet rubbered in. Thus, while the hierarchy remains unclear, the leading teams are not far from the front.

The ranking of the number of laps completed by each driver:

Formula 1 is about going fast, but it’s also about enduring the distance. During this challenge, the Jerez tests gave a newcomer, Esteban Gutierrez, the opportunity to cover 252 laps and nearly 1200 km, equivalent to the distance of four Grand Prix. A good start, especially since the Mexican driver only had two full days. His two pursuers in this ranking, Paul di Resta and Felipe Massa, took advantage of the absence of their respective teammates to exceed 220 laps and 1000 km on the 4.428 km Jerez track. A sign of reliability? A good indicator, even if, for Ferrari, Pedro de la Rosa’s tough last day reminds how dangerous it is to draw hasty conclusions.

Always placed in each ranking, Sebastian Vettel completed 198 laps and is ahead of the first McLaren, driven by Sergio Pérez, and the second Sauber of Nico Hülkenberg. Despite a very difficult start to testing for Mercedes, both drivers ultimately fared quite well, thanks to two days of intense work (148 laps on Thursday for Nico Rosberg, 142 laps on Friday for Lewis Hamilton).

The Mercedes are ahead, notably, of the two Lotus cars, which demonstrate, if there was any need, that dominating the top of the timesheet doesn’t necessarily mean wearing down the asphalt. Romain Grosjean still covered the distance of two Grand Prix. Behind him, Jenson Button is the last of the top drivers present in Spain in terms of the number of laps covered, with 120, which still represents 531.4 km, or one Grand Prix and three-quarters of another.

The ranking of laps completed by team:

On the team side, it’s Sauber that we find at the top, led by an Esteban Gutierrez who was hardly bothered by technical problems. A possible sign of reliability for the gray-clad C32 and, above all, a lot of data to analyze before the second week of testing in Barcelona, starting February 19.

Last year, Lotus finished at the top of this ranking, completing 402 laps, but this season, the men from Enstone are among the drivers who have driven the least with 272 laps. As for Ferrari, they also have limited track time compared to other teams, but with nearly the same mileage as last year when the Scuderia completed 270 laps compared to 278 this year, with Pedro de la Rosa’s last day not contributing much to increasing this number.

On the side of the other leading teams, Mercedes exits these tests in Jerez with a total of 322 laps covered, 24 less than the previous season, but with two very, very productive final days where both drivers exceeded 140 laps. McLaren, on the other hand, falls short of 300 laps by just one loop, but doesn’t stray far from its total last year, when it completed 315 laps of the Spanish circuit.

For Red Bull, finally, the four days went off without a hitch, and in addition to good speed performance, there is relatively interesting reliability as the Austrian team completed 372 laps in total, much better than last year (296 laps in 2012).

Thanks to the data collected during these four days of testing, the different teams will rework their cars to try to improve the performance and reliability of the various systems. They have 10 days before the next testing session, which will take place in Barcelona from February 19 to 22, and you can follow live and in full thanks to the live coverage by the editorial staff of **Motorsinside.com** and its special correspondent at the Catalan circuit.