Michael Schumacher completed Mercedes most promising day of testing this season with the fastest time and a very healthy 112 laps of the Jerez circuit. Questions were starting to be asked of the new W02, after problems with its hydraulics restricted running in the opening test at Valencia and its lap times were a long way off the front runners. On Thursday at Jerez Mercedes announced it had made a break through with the reliability of the car and on Friday Schumacher rocketed to the top of the timing screens. Although the timings should still be treated as little more than a very rough guide, the performance makes Mercedes the fourth different team to have finished a test day on top, joining Red Bull, Ferrari and Renault. Of those four, Ferrari has been the most consistent and again Felipe Massa was at the sharp end, just 0.061 off Schumacher. He completed a whopping 116 laps to add to his 101 on Thursday, meaning he has completed over three race distances in two days. Once again the F150th Italia didn't appear to skip a beat and the only setback came when red flags stopped the session. There were two in the morning for what looked like mechanical issues on the Renault and Toro Rosso and two further stoppages in the afternoon for accidents. Rookies Sergio Perez and Pastor Maldonado both blotted their copybooks with sizable accidents that put an end to their days. Perez ripped the front wing of the Sauber clean off and made a mess of the front left suspension. Maldonado also wiped the front wing of his Williams off and caused damage to the rear left suspension as the car ended up with its back end in the tyre barriers. Perez still ended the session in seventh after putting in some quick laps early on, while Maldonado was ranked ninth with just 37 laps against his name. McLaren continued to ease its way into testing, with Jenson Button putting 61 laps on the new MP4-26 and logging the third fastest time, 0.6 seconds shy of Schumacher. The team insists it has not yet run the new car at anything approaching full speed and is instead testing the reliability of its systems and solving teething problems. Meanwhile, Jaime Alguersuari put in a very solid lap in the Toro Rosso for fourth place in the standings, but like all the drivers is not getting distracted by the timing screens. "In performance terms, it is still a bit too early to start drawing conclusions, especially as the lap times here vary a lot from the morning to the afternoon," he said. "But I am reasonably confident that this side of the car's progress is on the right track." Virgin was another team that made an improvement, with Timo Glock logging the eighth fastest time, 1.8 seconds off Schumacher's pace. The same could not be said of rivals Lotus, who spent most of the afternoon in the garage fixing a mechanical problem. New parts will arrive over night to address the issue. Times Driver Car Time Laps 1. Michael Schumacher Mercedes W02 1:20.352 112 2. Felipe Massa Ferrari F150th Italia 1:20.413 116 3. Jenson Button McLaren MP4-26 1:21.009 69 4. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso STR6 1:21.214 72 5. Mark Webber Red Bull RB7 1:21.613 113 6. Adrian Sutil Force India VJM-04 1:21.780 73 7. Sergio Perez Sauber C30 1:21.857 56 8. Timo Glock Virgin MVR-02 1:22.208 57 9. Vitaly Petrov Renault R31 1:22.493 65 10. Pastor Maldonado Williams FW33 1:22.591 37 10. Jarno Trulli Lotus T128 1:23.216 40 © ESPN EMEA Ltd. Image Unavailable, Please Login
From ESPN Nick Heidfeld sent a clear signal to his prospective Renault employers by setting the fastest time of the day at Jerez behind the wheel of the R31. Heidfled came within 0.009 seconds of Michael Schumacher's best time of the week, as he sets his sights on replacing the injured Robert Kubica this season. Before the test Heidfeld insisted he was not aiming for fast times but in the afternoon he pulled together a quick lap, to not only hint at his ability, but also the competitiveness of the Renault. He is expected to hand the car over to Bruno Senna for Sunday before hearing his fate before the start of the third test in Barcelona. However, the team's decision to allow him to grab the headlines on what were most likely softer tyres and a light fuel load is a clear indication that it is keen to sign him up. Heidfeld's time toppled home hero Fernando Alonso from the No. 1 spot, but the Spaniard still had plenty to smile about after completing 131 laps over the course of the day. He was just 0.132 seconds shy of Heidfeld and over half a second clear of Schumacher in third, who completed another promising day in the Mercedes. The introduction of the new McLaren MP4-26 appeared to veer slightly off course as Lewis Hamilton completed just 33 laps at the wheel, the least of any car at the test. McLaren said it is waiting on spare parts and "on-the-spot repairs were effected, and the relevant new components will be delivered overnight ahead of tomorrow's running". Despite the problems, Hamilton did manage to sneak in the fourth fastest time as the team aims to gently ramp up the performance of the car over the remaining nine test days. Word champion Sebastian Vettel had a low-key day in the Red Bull as the team continued with the car's development. He set the sixth fastest time on Saturday and racked up 98 laps, but the general feeling is that the RB7 will still be one of the cars to beat come the start of the season. Kamui Kobayashi was fifth fastest, but Sauber's progress remains something of an enigma as the car also stopped twice on track, causing two red flags. A third red flag was caused by Paul di Resta when a brake problem saw him carry straight on in to the turn nine gravel trap - he walked away unharmed. Force India said the brake issue had been troubling the car's progress all day and he finished tenth on the timing sheets. But just as the session got back underway another red flag was caused by Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso, which stopped on track. A restart was called in the dying minutes and a couple of cars snuck out for one final lap before the chequered flag fell at 17:00 local time.
Here's a table showing the quickest laps from all the drivers over the four days of testing at Jerez.. Pos. Driver Team Time Day 01. R. Barrichello Williams 1:19.832 4 02. M. Schumacher Mercedes 1:20.352 2 03. N. Heidfeld Renault 1:20.361 3 04. F. Massa Ferrari 1:20.413 2 05. F. Alonso Ferrari 1:20.493 3 06. K. Kobayashi Sauber 1:20.601 4 07. J. Button McLaren 1:21.009 2 08. L. Hamilton McLaren 1:21.099 3 09. J. Alguersuari Toro Rosso 1:21.213 2 10. S. Buemi Toro Rosso 1:21.213 4 11. B. Senna Renault 1:21.400 4 12. S. Perez Force India 1:21.483 1 13. M. Webber Red Bull 1:21.522 1 14. S. Vettel Red Bull 1:21.574 3 15. H. Kovalainen Team Lotus 1:21.632 4 16. D. Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1:21.755 1 17. A. Sutil Force India 1:21.780 2 18. N. Rosberg Mercedes 1:22.103 4 19. T. Glock Virgin 1:22.208 2 20. V. Petrov Renault 1:22.493 2 21. P. Maldonado Williams 1:22.591 2 22. P. di Resta Force India 1:22.945 3 23. J. d'Ambrosio Virgin 1:22.985 4 24. J. Trulli Team Lotus 1:23.216 2
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/lowndes-to-drive-buttons-f1-car-ahead-of-melbourne-grand-prix/story-e6frecj3-1226000421187 Road trip to Bathurst anyone
Would love to know what time an F1 car would do around bathurst with a proper F1 driver behind the wheel. Mark Webber and Red Bull should get on it to steal Vodafone's thunder.
Why stop there.. someone at council needs to be pro-active and get the whole shooting match onto it! I can't imagine what the F1 suspension engineers will think of plunges into the dipper though.. I went for a quiet drive around and down it last weekend and it always reminds, and surprises, me of the huge dropoff through the bend..
PI would be good.. F1 should always have been there instead of around Albert Park.. (ideally). Bathurst would be awesome still though as once-off demo.. but there's no F1 current circuit with such steep drops and bends? Can't be a great fit..
You may find mt panorama doesn't tick all the boxes in relation to certain criteria needed by the FIA such as safety, public liability etc. Things we haven't thought of. Then there are the locals and closing the road.
There has been a Formula 1 Ferrari at Phillip Island before (ex Schumacher); but aside from starting the thing up, it never left pit lane. I have photos somewhere. The same car did run at Calder I am told. I can't see it happening at Bathurst. Too many unknowns and track safety isn't up to it.
Nick gets the nod to replace Kubica http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9399985.stm
Wonder why you'd own and take an F1 car to a circuit like PI and just start it up in pit lane and not drive it.. unless was technical problem or bad weather..
From memory they intended to run it, only to find out they weren't allowed because of noise. Anyway, it was only a part of their plans for the day...it made no difference.
ahh ok.. noise regs applied near long established circuit.. how disappointing.. I believe in UK it's even worse. Where could you run it ever? put on some restrictive muffling? They must vary regulations when it suits "big business" though, eg F1 @Albert Park.
Hehe, awesome! Doubt it, but I hope they can pull it off! Would be amazing to see! Yep! Yep! But of course.
you're a nut case. I was going to say idiot, but didn't want to offend anyone. I was going to say dick head, but I got banned for saying that once, so nut case it is.
