Ferrari, Red Bull and Williams’s reaction to the first day of F1 pre-season testing.
Ferrari
Sebastian Vettel (2nd time, +0.113sec to 1st, 128 laps)
63 laps covered so far by #Seb5, always on Medium tyres. #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/tsHvxZ2952
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) 27 February 2017
Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo (5th time, +1.161sec to 1st, 50 laps)
“Today’s session was okay, I felt I got up to speed relatively quickly. We had a bit of a slow start this morning but the afternoon was better and the last two hours were more like a test. It’s nice to end the day on a bit of a positive. There’s still a lot more to come from the car and you have to remember that the track is cold and the tyres are probably not at their optimum temperature. However, the times Lewis was setting today were already quicker than the times in Qualifying last year, so for sure it’s going to be faster. It’s cool for now but I think we will get a lot quicker from where we are today. We’ll hope to make steady steps tomorrow when Max is in the car and then we can start to do some more trimming.”
Red Bull Head of Race Engineering Guillaume Rocquelin
“Obviously we lost quite a bit of time today, which was frustrating. That was largely a function of the issues we had – a sensor problem this morning and then a problem with the energy store later on. Both are hard to access, so required some time to sort out. It meant we didn’t get real track time until around 4pm, but after that we ran without issue. The fixes we put in place cured the issues and we should be good to go tomorrow again. Daniel managed 50 laps in the end and what we saw during that period was encouraging.”
“The inevitable question you get asked on day one is: ‘is it quick, is it a front-runner’, and I’m afraid the rather dull answer to that question is ‘we’ll have to wait and see’. It’s a cliché but we won’t know the real answer until Saturday in Melbourne. Until then we just have to keep our heads down, stick to the plan and the performance will come. That process continues tomorrow.”
Nice going @danielricciardo ?#F1Testing pic.twitter.com/y57gm0Cfhf
— Formula 1 (@F1) 27 February 2017
Williams
Felipe Massa (3rd time, +0.311sec to 1st, 103 laps)
“Today was a good day. The first day of the test is always one where you hope everything on the car works well and that it’s reliable, and with 103 laps on the board I’d say that wasn’t bad at all. In the morning, we made a few set-up changes and checks so we knew that everything on the car was working in the right way. There was some waiting around whilst that was done thoroughly. That said, the lap count racked up in the afternoon after all those initial checks and changes were carried out.”
“It’s early to say where we are whilst we’re still in this learning stage, but I’m really enjoying driving. There’s much more grip and they go much quicker in the corners. We can brake much later and reach high speeds much quicker. Overall, it was a great first day which is really positive for the whole team. We completed more than 100 laps and I really hope we learn new things day by day and prepare ourselves as best as we can for the first race in Australia.”
Barcelona 1st day ????? @WilliamsRacing pic.twitter.com/Y284A9IkyV
— Felipe Massa (@MassaFelipe19) 27 February 2017
Rod Nelson, Chief Test & Support Engineer
“It was a very good day. It was a fillip for the guys who have been working on the car. We had a very straightforward day, particularly in the afternoon. We did some pretty good tests – short runs, long runs, compared the soft and medium tyres – and are still getting to know the FW40, so it is an interesting time of year and it is looking pretty reasonable at the moment. There is a massive amount to do, particularly this year with the huge regulation changes.”
“The tyres are going to take a lot of time getting to learn with the different compounds and sizes. There is a good chunk more downforce on the car. It’s a change for the drivers as their driving technique is quite different with this amount of grip, and the way we look after the car is different too, however the winter preparation seems to be paying off.”
#F1Testing #BarcelonaDay1 @WilliamsRacing pic.twitter.com/RXZJeNcDCL
— Felipe Massa (@MassaFelipe19) 27 February 2017
