Niko Hulkenberg with Renault was fastest after Day 4 of the Formula 1 tests at the Catalunya circuit. His teammate Daniel Ricciardo gave the third time.
Nico Hülkenberg, 247 laps completed:
“It’s been a good week overall with no real surprises or big dramas; only small things that the team have worked hard to rectify. The car is an evolution from last year and so far, it’s gone well. We’ve worked through our programme largely as planned with a lot of positive work done. We’ve been through a lot of different set-up work to see how the car reacts to discover more about the overall package. From now, it’s important we do our homework from this week and put it into the second test. We should have more parts to try out on the car next week, but we have a decent starting point to build off.”
Daniel Ricciardo, 186 laps completed:
“I’m starting to feel happier in the car and getting more of an understanding of my preferences with set-up. It’s been a good enough week, steadily increasing our ability, but you never turn it up to full during testing. It’s been useful trying different things, getting new feelings, so that’s been positive. There’s certainly more there, there’s a lot more potential still to extract. It’s all close at the moment, but we’re looking quite consistent. We’re still running a little bit conservative but we’ll see how it goes when we ramp it up.”
Alexander Albon was second fastest on the fourth day of the first 2019 pre-season test
“My first two days of F1 testing completed and I really enjoyed it! We had a good day today topping the timesheets in the morning session. I know it’s still early days and we don’t know what everyone else is doing. But it’s a good sign for the future. The first day began with a tricky start. But the team made me feel comfortable after that and we were able to get on with the programme”, he said.
“I think everything is going to plan quite well. We’ve hit our mileage target which is important for the guys back at the factory. And of course, at the same time, I’m still learning the car. The grip is so high that it took a while for my head to adjust to it. It’s been a big learning curve! I’m still not fully in the rhythm yet but I think after next week I’ll be there and ready to race.”
Toro Rosso’s Deputy Technical Director Jody Egginton added:
“For the final day of pre-season testing Alex was back behind the wheel and continued the work which Dany had put in during Day 3. After completion of a block of aero tests early on he moved into a general testing programme, carrying out a number of setup related test items. We then moved on to a series of new tyre runs, in order to provide Alex with a further opportunity to gain experience of how to best utilise the new tyre over a short run. This culminated in a solid performance on both the C4 and C5 compounds, which is encouraging at this point in the test programme. In the afternoon, similar to Dany [Kvyat] on Day 3, Alex conducted a number of longer stints putting in solid times on both compounds, whilst also gaining experience of managing the tyres over extended running.”
“Again, today we have seen Alex move along the learning curve impressively, managing both quick and consistent lap times whilst also developing the car setup to his liking together with his engineers. There is much more work to do in next week’s test. But we look forward to making further progress with the STR14.”
WEEK ONE = DONE ✅
The Renault pair are split at the top of the timesheets by @alex_albon ?
1⃣1⃣4⃣6⃣ laps completed on Day 4 – that’s more than 17 race distances!#F1 #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/WK9wFg49Yd
— Formula 1 (@F1) February 21, 2019
