Michael Schumacher fastest on fourth day of Barcelona pre-season testing – Formula 1 news
Michael Schumacher of Mercedes has clocked the fastest time on the fourth day of the Barcelona test with the new upgrades to the car, MGP-W02.
He did a fastest lap time of 1 minute and 21.249 seconds while completing 67 laps. He handed the car to teammate, Nico Rosberg, who did the third fastest lap time of the day.
The Mercedes team did make some upgrade to the new car, MGP-W02, because it was lacking performance in the first three tests. The upgrades included a revised front wing and new turning vanes.
Schumacher said, “Our focus today has been on understanding how to get the best from the car now that it is pretty much in its final configuration for the first time.”
This is the first day of all the testing days previously that the Mercedes duo has shown some competitiveness, as Rosberg clocked the third fastest time at 1 minute and 21.788 seconds in the afternoon session.
Fernando Alonso of Ferrari finished second on the times chart only 0.3 seconds behind the German driver. Alonso did a mammoth 141 laps and carried out various aerodynamic tests on the new car.
Following him was Nick Heidfeld of Renault who recovered from his flu and did 67 laps before his car faced a gearbox problem in the afternoon session.
Williams Rubens Barrichello was fifth with 89 trouble free laps. Barrichello handed the car over to his teammate Pastor Maldonado for the afternoon session. Maldonado’s outing was cut short to only 11 laps when his car FW33 faced an engine problem and he
finished 12th on the times chart.
Kamui Kobayashi of Sauber was sixth with 98 laps and Jamie Alguersuari of Toro Rosso was seventh with 72 laps. Eighth car was Red Bull’s RB7 which was on top of the table for the first two days and was third on the third day. However, on the fourth day,
Sebastian Vettel was the eighth fastest with only 64 laps.
Ninth was Lotus’ Heikki Kovalainen who managed 138 laps. Force India’s duo, Paul Di Resta and Adrian Sutil, was 10th and 11th respectively while doing 68 laps collectively.
McLaren’s Jenson Button was 13th who only managed 57 laps.
He said, “Today was never about pace, as we weren’t running lower fuel-loads, but there is pace in the car - it’s just been masked by reliability issues.”
Last on the tables was Virgin’s Jerome d’Ambrosio with 46 laps.
Hispania Racing Team were supposed to debut their car but their new car F111 was stuck in Spanish customs. Testing will continue in Barcelona on Saturday and only five teams will participate which include Williams, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and HRT.
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