Haas, Toro Rosso and Renault’s reaction to the second day of F1 pre-season testing.
Haas
Kevin Magnussen (4th time, +1.244sec to 1st, 118 laps)
“A good day. I got the most laps of anyone, so that’s sums up our day pretty well, with lots of running. That’s what it’s all about here at winter testing. We want to put as many miles on the car as possible, to find all of these little problems that can creep up during the season, to catch them as early as possible. I’m very happy with the feeling I have in the car and in working with the team. It’s been good to get back in a car again.”
Guenther Steiner, Haas team principal
“We have learned a lot from this test and it’s been good so far. We hope it continues like this over the next two days and into next week, as well. Today we ran our full program. This morning we had a small hiccup, nothing big, and in the afternoon we ran our full program. What we missed in the morning we got in the afternoon. We learned a lot about the behavior of the car, did setup changes.”
“We know that we still need to work on the car to get the best out of it, but that’s why we do testing. Now the guys will analyze the whole night, and tomorrow with Romain (Grosjean), we’ll put in what we learned today and try to make the car go quicker. It seems the car is very reliable. Ferrari has done a fantastic job with their engine package, gearbox, everything. It was very reliable today, no problems at all. Touch wood it stays like this for the rest of the test, but up to now we’re very satisfied.”
Impressive day for Kevin Magnussen…. but take care: Bottas 102 laps in the afternoon. Mercedes, 166 in one single day #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/xPN5BeTgBc
— Circuit BCN-CAT (@Circuitcat_eng) 28 February 2017
Toro Rosso
Daniil Kvyat (6th time, 1.996sec to 1st, 68 laps)
“It was a decent first day in the car for me and we were able to complete a good number of laps, which is always the main objective with a new car. We lost a bit of track time after lunch, but this always happens in testing – it’s normal to carry out precaution checks in order to double-check everything before going out. My first impressions of the STR12 are positive – it’s fast but we obviously need to keep working hard to improve this package. There’s still a lot to discover and that’s what we will keep on doing during the test.”
Jody Egginton (Head of Vehicle Performance):
“Overall we have taken a good step forwards in the learning process today and Daniil got his first opportunity to start working with the STR12. As we did yesterday, we started the day gathering aero data and conducting some background tests. After that, we moved on to baseline runs, combining what we learnt on Day 1 with some further tests, focusing on aero, tyre and mechanical characterisation. Overall, the results we have achieved so far are encouraging and we are working through our test programme adapting the run plans as required as we overcome the normal challenges associated with testing a new car. We have a huge amount of data to work through both trackside and at the factory overnight and from this we expect to take another step forwards in our learning tomorrow.”
Can’t get tired of watching @Dany_Kvyat go by – in slow motion this time to give you more time to enjoy it ?? #STR12 pic.twitter.com/wo4DNGCMj5
— Toro Rosso (@ToroRossoSpy) 28 February 2017
Renault
Jolyon Palmer (8th time, +3.179sec to 1st, 53 laps)
“I’ve really enjoyed driving the car today. The downforce is a massive change; it’s completely different from last year. It takes a little bit of getting used to but it’s actually a lot more enjoyable to drive. For today, we had a productive afternoon with 53 laps. It’s just a shame not to have ran this morning but we learnt a lot regardless and we aim to have a fuller day tomorrow.”
Remi Taffin, Engine Technical Director:
“We had a late start today but we were still able to complete set-up work on the chassis, gather data on the power unit side and give Jolyon a chance to evaluate the R.S.17. We completed just over 50 laps this afternoon and we were happy with how the car ran. Everything we’ve seen from the power unit perspective has been positive, and we’re looking forward to getting some bigger mileages under our belts in the coming days. We have a good amount of data from today and plenty of work to do overnight.”
We can confirm it: hearing our R.S.17 driving past does not get old ?#F1Testing pic.twitter.com/kKWpm2Bg5K
— Renault Sport F1 (@RenaultSportF1) 28 February 2017
