F1 Testing Bahrain day 1
NICO HULKENBERG FASTEST RED BULL STILL IN TROUBLE—
Bahrain Test Report, 19 February 2014
Sahara Force India and Nico Hulkenberg finished at the top of the timesheets after the first day of testing at the Bahrain International Circuit.
Day One Statistics:
Chassis: VJM07-01
Laps: 79 laps
Mileage: 428 km
Fastest lap: 1:36.880
Classification: P1
Nico Hulkenberg: “A very positive and satisfying day. We had a busy programme and we learned a lot. Time in the car is very valuable at the moment and so it feels good to cover so many laps and even complete two long runs at the end of the day. That gave me a chance to see how the car behaves and to start getting a feel for it, which was not something I was able to do in Jerez. It’s great that we’ve already done some set-up work and started to improve the drivability of the car. But it’s still very early stages; we are learning with every lap and we face a very steep learning curve in the coming days. ”
Otmar Szafnauer, Chief Operating Officer:
“Our Bahrain test has got off to a positive start. 79 laps is a good effort and it’s just what we need at this early stage of the VJM07’s development. The aero work this morning ran smoothly with the constant speed runs giving us some aero data we required. In the afternoon we started evaluating the soft and medium tyres, and running through different set-up options – changing ride heights and rebalancing the car. We ended the day with a couple of longer runs on the soft tyres.”
Test driving schedule
Nico Hulkenberg will be back in the VJM07 tomorrow. Sergio Perez will drive on Friday and Saturday.
RED BULL:
Driver: Sebastian Vettel
Car: RB10
Laps: 14
Best time: 1:40.224
Circuit length: 5.412km
Fastest Lap: N Hulkenberg (1:36.880)
Infiniti Red Bull Racing today continued its pre-season preparations in Bahrain where Sebastian Vettel put in 14 laps. After a long build this morning, the champion made it out on track, but his progress was ended late in the afternoon by a mechanical issue.
“Obviously we’re not happy with where we are now and we have a long way ahead of us. The first gut feeling from the car is OK, but we need more running,” he said. “It’s not easy to find a quick fix, but I think we understand the problems. We sorted out the issues from Jerez and we were able to do some laps today. However, very often you fix one problem and another pops up, which is what happened. That’s testing. We all knew this year was a massive challenge and we knew it would be difficult. We obviously didn’t want this, but it is what it is and we are working flat out to solve the problems.”
Race Engineering Co-ordinator Andy Damerum added: “It’s been a very long two weeks for everyone back at the factory and I have to say that while it might not appear so on the surface there has been a big improvement since Jerez. We are obviously playing catch-up and for us this was very much like a first test, so we were sending the car out to do one lap, then two and trying to build from there. In that regard the laps completed were good. However, we were sidelined by a mechanical gremlin but one unrelated to the issues in Jerez. That’s the way of testing. All these problems have to be ironed out and only reveal themselves as you progress. We’ll look at solving that issue now and we’re itching to get out on track again tomorrow.”
Lap times
1. Nico Hulkenberg (Force India) 1:36.8
2. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) 1:37.8
3. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 1:37.9
4. Kevin Magnussen (McLaren) 1:38.2
5. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) 1:40.2
6. Adrian Sutil (Sauber) 1:40.4
7. Robin Frijns (Caterham) 1:42.5
8. Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso) 1:44.3
9. Romain Grosjean (Lotus) 1:44.8
10. Felipe Massa (Williams); Jules Bianchi (Marussia) no time