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Fernando Alonso was the only driver to set a lap time at the third day of pre-season testing in Barcelona, which read a 2:18.545. Teams arrived at the circuit this morning to find it covered in snow, with temperatures dangerously low for F1's tyres.
While the green flag was originally meant to wave at 9 AM local time, that was delayed until 12 PM in the afternoon. Much of the morning was spent waiting for news on how the day would proceed. When the green light was shown, nobody rushed out to get onto the circuit.
In fact, it was an hour and 13 minutes after the track went green before a car pulled out of the pitlane. It was Alonso in the McLaren, who would spend the afternoon recurring back onto the circuit for more nothing more than installation laps, before setting a lap time minutes before the end of the session.
Daniel Ricciardo and Brendon Hartley set two installation laps each, while Marcus Ericsson and Robert Kubica both took to the track once before returning to the pit-lane immediately.
Teams missed out on a major amount of running today, but it is expected that the conditions will be much more ideal on Thursday. It will mark the final day of testing this week before it kicks off again next Tuesday.
Fergal Walsh
Circuit de Catalunya - 28 February 2018
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
79 members have this team as their favourite
Replies (11)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Very disappointing day, but hardly surprising. Come on, give them an additional day. And in the future it might be wise to host the practice sessions in a warmer country, it could very well end up saving money and time in the long run. By the way: did Toro Rosso include the lap Hartley did on the sledge?
f1fan0101
Posts: 1,804
Agreed!!
Kean
Posts: 692
which were the two teams that vetoed having an extra day of testing. Seems like a dick move to me.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I dont know, but it doesnt make sense... Why would teams want to veto more testing? I mean, maybe it'll be more costly for them? Thats the only reason I can think of. Other than that, you are ultimately losing out on vital data. And weather forecasts for friday looks good.
mbmwe36
Posts: 533
If you're a small team, I guess you could argue that it could be in their interest that the other (bigger..) teams may not be able to get their shit together, and that the first couple of races are ruled by randomness.
Of course this could come back to haunt the smaller team, but if you figure you'll end up in 18th or 16th place, what do you have to lose anyway?
HEINZ
Posts: 61
I read somewhere it was Williams and Ferrari... They have filming days on the following days I think.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Fair enough then. I can see why they'd want that it that way then.
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
@calle I still don't get it. Filming days are not for testing. You don't really get valuable data running with different tyres at low speeds.
Ferdrasr
Posts: 1
I can only understand it because of the money they get. But four weeks into the season, and with only 8 days of testing, a single day should be gold for the mechanics...
Kean
Posts: 692
they could keep their filming days for friday and saturday, and then they could start the test on monday instead of tuesday.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
@APENNYJACKER this is the way I see it: You are Ferrari. You see that conditions are suboptimal for testing, but you also know that rivals like Mercedes and Red Bull want to get an extra day on Friday for testing (and they've likely planned for that day to happen), but you've already planned to have your filming day that day. By sticking to your horses, you do not only get to retain things according to your schedule, you've been able to meddle with your rival teams' plans. And even if you wont get the same value of data as you would during training, you will still get some data out of it, and some is better than nothing, especially if your rivals hasnt gotten anything the same day. It could be the same for Williams, but I imagine its more of a cost issue for them.