Barcelona Testing 1 – The Summary of the Four Days

It is always very difficult to clearly establish an image of what the hierarchy of the season might be. Between misinformation and groundwork, the teams, often on different programs, take great pleasure in holding back. For this second round of winter testing of the year, all teams were present in Barcelona, notably Williams, who presented their new car, the FW35, on Tuesday. Fernando Alonso, absent in Jerez, made up for it by completing three days of testing.

The ranking of the best laps by driver:

The second test session confirmed that, as usual, we didn’t know much. In this somewhat tricky game, drawing conclusions from the timing chart proves delicate. On a strictly objective level, two men stood out by setting the two best times – under the 1:22.0 mark, which hadn’t even been surpassed last year by Kimi Räikkönen, who had set the best time during the eight testing days in Barcelona in 2012: Sergio Pérez and Fernando Alonso. The former set his time on the second day, after a discreet first day, while Fernando Alonso achieved his on the third and final day under normal conditions. These two times, achieved on soft tires, are difficult to interpret, even though their lead over others suggests that the search for performance was not far off.

Next, three tenths behind, are Nico Hülkenberg, Romain Grosjean, and Sebastian Vettel, separated by 37 thousandths, all three on soft tires. But again, it’s difficult to make comparisons. The first drivers on different tires are Nico Rosberg and Kimi Räikkönen: the Mercedes driver is 12 thousandths ahead of the Lotus driver on medium tires. The first drivers on hard tires are Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

Apart from an improvement in the level of the field compared to last season, which was not really unforeseen since the technical regulations have remained relatively stable, few lessons can be drawn regarding performance from this first testing session in Barcelona.

The ranking of the number of laps completed by drivers:

To each his own honor: the man making his return to his country, Fernando Alonso, took advantage of his three days on track to complete the most laps in this first testing session. An impressive total that represents more than four times the distance of a regular Spanish Grand Prix (66 laps) and suggests a reliable Ferrari F138, in line with its predecessor, with the only issue having been controlled by Ferrari on Wednesday, allowing a damaged exhaust to reach the end of its life to better understand potential problems of this type. Behind the Spaniard, it’s Max Chilton who takes second place in the diligence ranking: not really an achievement for the young Brit who took advantage of Luiz Razia’s absence—apparently facing administrative difficulties—to drive all four days and almost cover the distance of four races.

In the category of drivers who have run a maximum of two days, the Williams drivers make a good impression: Valtteri Bottas and Pastor Maldonado covered 189 and 178 laps respectively, at the wheel of a car presented only on Tuesday, and they even treated themselves to the luxury of attempting a race simulation, which Pastor Maldonado succeeded in by completing 66 laps in a row without any notable incidents on Thursday morning. Other workhorses to note include: Jean-Eric Vergne, who almost covered the distance of three Spanish Grand Prix, Nico Hülkenberg, and Lewis Hamilton, who completed the vast majority of his 173 laps during the second day of testing (121 laps).

On the less active side, slight concern for Kimi Räikkönen: the Finn, in his Lotus, was only able to complete 87 laps, hindered on the first day by a telemetry problem, preventing him from performing long stints, and held up at the pits for a long time on the second day by a gearbox issue. Meanwhile, Jules Bianchi (96 laps), Felipe Massa (80), and Adrian Sutil (78) only drove one day, explaining such a low total. Within the Indian team, moreover, the difference in weather conditions between Thursday and Friday should not allow for a satisfactory comparison between the Frenchman and the German.

The ranking of the number of laps completed by team:

For a first, it’s a successful first: the Williams FW35 presented on Tuesday is the car that completed the most laps during this testing session in Barcelona. With a total of 367 laps, the Grove team covered the equivalent of 5.5 Spanish Grand Prix, including 66 consecutive laps on Thursday. Ferrari also completed over 360 laps over these four days, demonstrating that the reliability qualities seen in Jerez were not just a flash in the pan.

At the back of this ranking, Lotus is naturally penalized by the limited running in the first two days and, as in Jerez, is among the last teams in terms of attendance. The next testing session, again in Barcelona, should confirm or refute this trend.

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 4 days to do so before the start of the next test session, which will take place in Barcelona from February 28 to March 3. You can follow these tests live and in full thanks to the live coverage by the editorial team of Motorsinside.com and their special correspondent at the Catalan circuit.