Force India
Adrian Sutil replaced Tonio Liuzzi in testing at the Circuit de Catalunya today. After a switch to the second race chassis overnight last night, Adrian's morning programme was principally concentrated on baseline runs and set-up checks. Unfortunately when rain fell mid-morning the team was forced to change its afternoon plans to include performance running rather than a race distance as originally scheduled.
Adrian completed just 61 laps as a result, setting the seventh quickest time of the day, a 1:22.606. He will continue the test programme tomorrow.
Adrian Sutil
It was OK today but a little disappointing not to have been able to have more running. Again we have had rain so we had to wait some time to get some decent running. We only got 61 laps as I was hoping for better weather, particularly after last week's test in Jerez. Tomorrow should be better so that's when the real programme can start for me with a race simulation.
Dominic Harlow, chief race engineer
A slight change of plan today when the rain arrived, meaning that Adrian shook down a new chassis, but also completed a number of set-up tests rather than focussing on longer runs. It was difficult to conclude too much because of the track conditions, but we were able to uncover some useful items. With the final day of 2010 winter testing tomorrow expected to be dry, we are planning final race preparation work and aiming to complete as many of our test objectives as possible.
Williams
Rubens Barrichello joined the team in Barcelona today for day three of this week's four day test in Spain. As predicted, rain caused disruptions to this morning's work, and several red flags, but made way for some valuable dry running after the lunch break.
The team concentrated on set-up work with the FW32 in the earlier part of the session, before commencing race simulations in the afternoon. Rubens clocked 101 laps over the course of the day and ended the session in P4 on the time sheets with a 1:21.975.
Rubens will remain on testing duties tomorrow for the final day of the pre-season winter test run.
Sam Michael: Today we had some interruptions caused by rain, but we still managed to achieve just over one hundred laps working on race runs and set-up with Rubens. We're now focussing our attention on some more set-up work for the final day of winter testing.
Rubens Barrichello: We covered 101 laps today, which is always good. Unfortunately, we had some rain during the day which affected the programme a little bit. Everything that the team has brought to this test seems to be working well, so it’s been a positive day altogether.
Renault
Summary of the day: Light rain showers in the morning limited Vitaly’s track time, but the afternoon remained dry allowing the team to complete qualifying simulations and long runs.
Vitaly Petrov: “Another day of changing weather so we lost some time in the morning with the rain, but fortunately it was dry in the afternoon. We had a lot planned as it was my last day in the car before Bahrain and we did some good work and we’ve improved the car quite a bit. The qualifying simulation was useful and it was important I did this before the first race.”
Alan Permane, Chief Engineer: “It was a better day for Vitaly. We had a few issues with the car in the morning that we carried over from yesterday, but we very quickly got on top of them. The car was then much to his liking just before lunch. Unfortunately we had a little bit of rain again this morning, but managed some work in the afternoon carrying various fuel loads and Vitaly finished the day quite happy with the car. It’s a shame that he couldn’t have run a bit more today, but it was good to get a decent day of running.”
Mercedes
Nico Rosberg completed the third day of testing for the Mercedes GP Petronas team at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona today to bring his pre-season testing programme to its conclusion.
Nico spent the morning working on qualifying simulations and developing the car set-up before completing a race simulation exercise in the afternoon. Despite intermittent rain showers in the late morning and early afternoon, Nico was able to complete almost 600kms over 128 laps as he set the fastest time of the day, a 1:20.686, during the driest period this morning.
Michael Schumacher will take over the MGP W01 tomorrow for the fourth and final day of the test.
Nico Rosberg: “We had a good day today and made some significant progress in terms of set-up which was nice to see. We hadn’t got the most out of the car in terms of performance over the last couple of days, but we made a step in the right direction today. We went through some big changes this morning step by step and found some good improvements. The longer runs this afternoon were interesting. We learnt a lot as there were other cars running similar programmes at the same time so we were able to do some comparisons. There is still plenty of room to improve but overall we’re looking in pretty good shape.”
Lotus
The morning sunshine gave way to grey conditions and light rain in Barcelona as the Lotus Racing T127 completed a successful third day of testing. By lunchtime Jarno Trulli had already completed 60 laps, and went on consistently throughout the day to finish on a total of 102 laps. The team completed a full race distance and were satisfied with the timings and quality of the day's activity.
Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer, commented on today's test, saying; "Another productive day with Jarno; over a hundred laps completed with no real mechanical issues and Jarno was able to complete the full race distance in the mix of wet and dry weather.
"We successfully completed our whole programme with the changeable conditions and have had two very useful days with Jarno in the car, with a very clear set up direction from him. Now we're looking forward to further refining the balance of the car with Heikki tomorrow."
Heikki takes the hot seat for the final day's testing before the season starts in earnest in Bahrain.
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