Jerez Testing: Day 2

| Source: ferrari.com | KRS Jerez Gallery |

Testing F1 Jerez de la Frontera, Spain 28-31 January 2014

Jenson Button’s McLaren topped the second day of pre-season Formula 1 testing at Jerez, as the Mercedes-engined teams demonstrated an early advantage in 2014.

Morning times:

Pos Driver             Team                  Time        Gap      Laps
 1. Jenson Button      McLaren               1m36.094s             16
 2. Valtteri Bottas    Williams-Mercedes     1m37.762s   +1.668s   17
 3. Kimi Raikkonen     Ferrari               1m38.272s   +2.178s   15
 4. Sergio Perez       Force India-Mercedes  1m39.008s   +2.914s   13
 5. Esteban Gutierrez  Sauber-Ferrari        1m41.798s   +5.704s   33
 6. Nico Rosberg       Mercedes              No time     -         5
 7. Sebastian Vettel   Red Bull-Renault      No time     -         5

Afternoon times:

Pos Driver             Team                  Time        Gap     Laps
 1. Jenson Button      McLaren               1m24.165s            43
 2. Kimi Raikkonen     Ferrari               1m24.812s   +0.647s  47
 3. Valtteri Bottas    Williams-Mercedes     1m25.344s   +1.179s  35
 4. Nico Rosberg       Mercedes              1m25.588s   +1.423s  97
 5. Sergio Perez       Force India-Mercedes  1m28.376s   +4.211s  37
 6. Esteban Gutierrez  Sauber-Ferrari        1m33.270s   +9.105s  53
 7. Marcus Ericsson    Caterham-Renault      1m37.975s  +13.810s  11
 8. Sebastian Vettel   Red Bull-Renault      1m38.320s  +14.155s   8

Ferrari Day 2 Report:

Because of the wet start to the day, the morning programme began with the testing requested by Pirelli, relating to development of their wet weather tyres. The Scuderia was quickly able to assess the intermediate tyres, thus making the most of the time remaining and the progressively drying track to begin work on the car in preparation for the afternoon’s programme.

By the end of the day, Raikkonen had managed to complete a total of 47 laps, the fastest in a time of 1.24.812. He continued the task of checking the car’s functionality as well as trying a few set-up changes.

“Every time we go out on track we learn something new” – said Kimi. “This week the times don’t matter and the only thing that does is to do a good number of laps without any problems and fortunately, we have managed that on both days. The team is working hard and at the next test in Bahrain, we will continue to improve.”

Testing continues at this circuit tomorrow, when Fernando Alonso will make his season debut on track.

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Team Quotes: Kimi Raikkonen’s mileage in first F1 test pleases Ferrari

“I am reasonably happy with what we have seen so far,” said Allison. “I don’t think there are any killers we have uncovered.

“The fault list is not a short one, it never is with a new car, but we are able to keep going out of the garage and doing the laps.

“Our relative lack of laps compared with the V8 era is not about the fundamental reliability of the package, it is about us making sure we don’t make mistakes.”

Allison said the lack of running throughout the field compared to 12 months ago was evidence not of poor reliability but simply the complication of the new rules.

“The point of these first two days is to get running, get the car programmed with the gazillion of numbers that you need to make it do its thing, and to make sure that the really basic building blocks of the car are correct,” he said.

“That includes stuff that is straightforward but completely fundamental to this car like doing all the things for cooling properly.

“There are a lot of different fluids in the car and they all have to be cooled, and that is really extremely important to allow us a foundation for the next two days of testing and the next two days before the season starts.”

Commentary and timing links to follow the tests: