Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel fastest time in Barcelona testing
The third of the four Formula 1 test sessions has started at the Barcelona Circuit de Catalunya, as defending champion Sebastian Vettel was able to put the fastest time on a short stint. Vettel completed only 37 laps and posted a fastest time of 1 minute
and 24.374 seconds.
The day started with slightly damp and wet conditions, which were favourable for testing the Pirelli tyre wet compound. Red Bull’s car was confined to pits as some precautionary checks were run. Vettel explained, “It wasn’t anything big, nothing broke, but
at the test if you think there might be a problem then you’d rather take the car apart and check.”
The Spaniard Fernando Alonso was the fastest for most part of the day in his F150th Italia, but in the afternoon he managed to drop to the second position. He managed a few laps on the Pirelli wet compound out of the 101 laps he managed to complete. Alonso
did not face any technical problems during his testing run.
In the third position is Toro Rosso’s Jamie Alguersuari, as he brought out the third red flag of the day when his car turned into rubble on turn four. He did manage to get 20 laps in the morning session to test the wet tyres.
Following him was another red flag car of Kamui Kobayashi, as he was also bumped at turn five. Before that, he completed 78 laps and posted the fourth fastest time of 1 minute and 25.641 seconds. Fifth place is McLarens' Jenson Button, who managed 77 laps
in his new MP4-26 car. Sixth place belonged to Force India’s Paul De Resta, whose outing was cut short due to a delay in spare parts arrival.
In seventh place was Jerez’s fastest Rubens Barrichello, as he brought the first red flag of the day when his car came to stop at turn seven. He came back in the afternoon session and completed 52 laps. Eighth place belonged to Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher
in his new MGP W02 car. His testing session concentrated on an aero check and also the simulation of pit-stops. “We had a good day and it is certainly satisfying to finish a race distance with all of the systems operational and to have everything working fine,”
said Schumacher.
Still using the old car, in ninth place is Hispania’s Narain Karthikeyan, who completed a massive number of 116 laps. He will hand over the car to Vitantonio Liuzzi, who will probably get a seat at HRT.
Tenth place belonged to Lotus’ Heikki Kovalainen, who managed 54 laps after an early stop for a gearbox test. “It was good to start the day with some runs on the intermediates in proper damp conditions,” said the Finn.
Jerome D’Ambrosio of the Virgin team, finished eleventh after 116 laps. Following him was Renault’s driving pair Vitaly Petrov and new inclusion Nick Heidfeld, which faced a major issue with the Kinetic Energy Recovery System and was mostly confined to the
pits. They collectively managed only 47 laps.
As testing is set to continue on Saturday, it will be interesting to see how the teams manage to collect enough data on the performance of their respective cars to give them a competitive advantage once the 2011 Formula 1 season begins.
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