Jerez Tests – The Assessment of the Four Days

Four days of testing clearly aren’t enough to accurately determine the hierarchy of the season, especially when it comes to the first tests of a season that marks the beginning of a new era. Between delays, difficulties, misinformation, and foundational work, the teams, often on different programs, are not fully committed. For this start of the year, ten of the eleven teams registered for the world championship were present in Jerez, awaiting Team Lotus, which postponed its debut to February 19 for the first test session in Bahrain.

The ranking of the best laps by driver:

More than usual, the lap times of the drivers should be taken with caution. The combined effects of the change in technology (switch from a well-mastered V8 technology to a new hybrid V6 turbo technology) and a generally mixed weather did not allow the drivers to perform many performance stints. And even when they were able to take place, on Wednesday and Thursday, the drivers were far from the capabilities of their car.

Under these conditions, the best time was set by Kevin Magnussen, the Danish rookie was the fastest at the wheel of his McLaren MP4-29 during the third day, held under good track conditions. This time, achieved without pushing to the maximum, according to his own statements, still allowed Jan’s son to make a positive impression, before making an error at the end of the last day of testing on Friday.

Behind the Dane, we find his two pursuers from Thursday: Felipe Massa in the Williams FW36, half a second behind, who set the fastest time of Friday’s session on a drying track, and Lewis Hamilton. Behind this leading trio from the third day, another trio, consisting of Wednesday’s session, with McLaren’s other driver, Jenson Button, leading Kimi Räikkönen and Valtteri Bottas. As Wednesday and Thursday afternoon offered the best conditions, it’s unsurprising that the fastest times were recorded then. In short, not much to draw from these times, except that some drivers couldn’t do much, like the last 5 drivers who posted a time in this chart, all equipped with Renault engines.

The ranking of the number of laps completed by the drivers:

In the little game of the most studious driver – or lucky enough not to encounter problems – Nico Rosberg hit the jackpot: with 188 laps, covering 832.5 km, the German is just about 80 km short of completing the distance of three Grand Prix races. Behind him, in the rank of drivers who covered the distance of at least two races, are Fernando Alonso, with 766 km, and Kevin Magnussen, with 717.3 km. A notable performance but one that needs to be put into perspective: firstly because the engines were not pushed to the level they will be during the races, and secondly because the cold weather conditions did not put the engines to the test. In this respect, the Bahrain tests should be more revealing.

Behind these three men, Felipe Massa doesn’t quite cover the distance of two Grand Prix races but comes very close with his 588.9 km. He is ahead of Lewis Hamilton who, following his accident on Tuesday, wasn’t able to drive at all in the afternoon, though he managed to make up part of his delay on Friday in the second half of the day. Over the 305 km distance (that of a GP), we also find: Adrian Sutil, Jenson Button, Daniel Juncadella, and Kimi Räikkönen. The first driver equipped with a Renault engine is Kamui Kobayashi, whose Caterham covered 54 laps, or 239.1 km, on Friday before suffering yet another breakdown.

The number of laps completed by the teams:

On the team side, these tests have been a walk in the park for Mercedes, who, even missing practically an entire day (from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning), managed to accumulate laps: with 309 laps of the Jerez circuit, the German team therefore covered 1,368.3 km without experiencing any major reliability issues.

Behind Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren are not far behind, and despite a few warnings for one and a missed opening day for the other, they were able to cover 251 and 245 laps each, thus collecting valuable data. On Red Bull’s side, these tests were catastrophic, and the car of the four-time world champion team did not even cover a third of the distance of a race, with only 21 laps in four days.

The number of laps completed by the riders:

On the engine side, the numbers speak for themselves: the Mercedes engines have been heavily used. With 3874.5 km distributed across four different teams (Mercedes, McLaren, Williams, and Force India), the Mercedes engines have covered an average of 968 km per team. This is relatively far ahead of the Ferrari engine, which, with 1966 km distributed across three teams, allowed each engine to cover an average of 655 km. However, it should be noted that Marussia, equipped this season with an Italian power unit, was only able to perform one and a half days of testing. Without the Russian team, the Ferrari turbo V6 engines covered an average of 916 km between Ferrari and Sauber.

Renault, on the other hand, experienced a calamitous first session of testing: with a total of 668.6 km covered, the French engine manufacturer paid for the weakness of certain electronic components against configurations that differed from one team to another. This lack of reliability greatly handicapped the company and the teams it supplies engines to. The Bahrain tests will be crucial for Renault to rebound and collect essential data for the development of the cars in view of the first race of the season.

Thanks to the information acquired during these four days of testing, the different teams will rework their single-seaters to try to improve performance and reliability of the various systems. They have less than twenty days before the next testing session begins, which will be held in Bahrain from February 19 to 22, and can be followed live and in full thanks to the live coverage by the Motorsinside.com editorial team.