FEBRUARY 21, 2012

Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull fastest as Lotus quits Barcelona test

World Champion Sebastian Vettel (1:23.265) set the fastest lap of the first day's F1 testing at Circuit de Catalunya, the second of three tests scheduled before the season-opening Australian GP in Melbourne on March 18.

World Champion Sebastian Vettel (1:23.265) set the fastest lap of the first day's F1 testing at Circuit de Catalunya, the second of three tests scheduled before the season-opening Australian GP in Melbourne on March 18.

Vettel set his best lap early in the afternoon on a set of hard compound Pirelli tyres, having set a similar time in cold conditions earlier in the day on mediums.

"It's clear that the cars have less grip than last year," he said, "but we try to come back from that slowly. It's difficult to judge where we are compared with the others right now. It's all based on feeling and the feeling I have inside the car at the moment is fine. We had a long lunch break when we made some changes, but not because anything broke. All in all, it was a good day."

Red Bull's Ian Morgan explained: "These tests are a process of continuous development and the programme today was influenced a bit by what we learned at the last test. We also had to test some items that were put into development before the car even took to the track.

"The next two days will be somewhat different. We will be doing race simulations and will have the whole race team here, so we will try to mix that with continuing the development. There aren't many chances to run through a whole race weekend before the season starts and we'll do a simulation with each driver."

Continuing the promise shown at the opening test in Jerez a fortnight ago, Nico Hulkenberg (1:23.440) set second fastest time of the day with the Force India VJM05.

"I'm pleased with how things went," the German said, "We started with some aero runs and more data gathering this morning, and then moved to longer runs in the afternoon. The car feels consistent and the drivability is good."

Lewis Hamilton (1:23.590) was on duty for McLaren, the 2008 champion complimentary about the high-speed corner performance of the MP4-27 during his 117 laps.

"With more than 500km under our belt, this was an extremely productive day," said team manager David Redding. "The car ran reliably and without problem all day and Lewis was happy. Given the cooler temperatures we experienced today, we're optimistic that we're headed in the right direction with our tyre and set-up work."

Daniel Ricciardo (1:23.618) lapped within a couple of tenths of Hamilton in the Toro Rosso STR7, the team evaluating set-up configurations on varying fuel loads until stopped by a technical problem with an hour of the day remaining.

Fernando Alonso lapped in 1:24.100 with the new Ferrari F2012, which was five hundredths quicker than Michael Schumacher at the wheel of the newly-revealed Mercedes W03.

The seven times champion did 51 laps before a hydraulic problem ended the Mercedes programme early.

"My initial feelings with our new car are certainly good," Schumacher said. "but obviously with the rule changes, we won't know more until later. It's certainly an improvement and we have worked hard on the areas we had defined last year. The aerodynamic figures look good so I'm not worried about the shape of the nose!"

Sergio Perez (1:24.219) also struck mechanical trouble in the form of a rear anti-roll bar issue, which limited Sauber to 66 laps.

"We obviously didn't cover the mileage we wanted to," said the team's Giampaolo Dall'Ara. "In the morning we had some doubts related to the structure, which didn't occur in Jerez and therefore appear to be track related.

"We touched base with our experts in Hinwil for analyses and at the same time found a mechanical solution here at the track. In the afternoon we then had another unforeseen break due to a mechanical issue with the rear anti roll bar, which meant the gearbox had to be removed."

Bruno Senna did 97 laps in the Williams FW34 with a best lap of 1:25.711, working through a detailed aero correlation programme in the morning before moving on to set-up optimisation. Valterri Bottas will take over the car tomorrow.

Heikki Kovalainen managed just 31 laps in the Caterham, with a best of 1:26.035, the team hit by a track rod problem.

Lotus, meanwhile, had more serious, as yet unspecified problems with Romain Grosjean's (1:26.809) chassis 02, which ran for the first time this morning, and has elected to cancel the remainder of the test.

Technical director James Allison explained: "Before we were due to fly chassis E20-01 out to Barcelona in replacement of chassis E20-02 - damaged this morning - we ran a series of simulations at the factory based on the data provided by our brief running on track today.

"As a result, we were able to identify an area that requires some additional work. It will be more productive for us to carry out these modifications to both chassis at Enstone rather than send E20-01 out to this week's test. We'll put the right measures in place and will be able to fix the problem before next week."

Team principal Eric Boullier added: "Not running this week has been a tough decision to take, but we feel that our choice is the right one. On the positive side, we have quickly identified the issue with the chassis and our design office has already devised a solution.

"We will be present at next week's test in Barcelona. We draw faith from the fact that the E20 was quick out of the box in Jerez and showed its reliability there. We have a lot of work ahead of us over the next week but everyone at Enstone is ready for the challenge."

Charles Pic (1:28.026) was the day's mileage king with 121 laps aboard the 2011 Virgin chassis, now running as a MaRussia. The day's main focus was re-acclimatising the race team to pit stops after the winter break and providing an opportunity for Pic to practice them in representative conditions.