Michael Schumacher roared to the top of the timesheets in Jerez as F1 settled into a long day of winter testing...
Michael Schumacher’s 2011 Mercedes was the fastest car at the Circuito de Jerez today followed in close attendance by Mark Webber’s Red Bull and Daniel Ricciardo’s Toro Rosso. The Australians were the fastest men driving the new 2012 machinery – though the second day of the winter testing season was more about distance rather than speed with four drivers and five cars breaking the hundred-lap barrier.
The only driver changes from yesterday were Sergio Perez taking over from Kamui Kobayashi for Sauber, Schumacher getting the Mercedes all to himself and Paul di Resta splitting the day in the VJM05 with Force India’s newly minted third driver Jules Bianchi.
Once again, Heikki Kovalainen led away at the clock ticked over to nine, though today his Caterham was running its KERS hybrid drive for the first time. He was followed out of the pits by yesterday’s man of the moment, Kimi Räikkönen, and a gaggle of others as the full field assembled. Webber was the early pacesetter, though with the temperature only just north of zero, no-one was putting in anything too mighty – though Räikkönen gave it a go early on and was rewarded with an excursion into the gravel trap for his efforts.
Jenson Button briefly took top spot in the early runs, as did Ricciardo, but for the most part Webber headed the list, and in the early morning appeared to be doing something that looked suspiciously like qualifying simulation as he and Ricciardo were the only men lapping in the 1m19s. Although, Michael Schumacher then came out to spoil the All-Australian front row, putting his Mercedes into the 1m18s, half a second quicker than Webber and comfortably in a bracket all of its own.
Interestingly (or possibly not) Schumacher was approximately two seconds quicker in the Mercedes than he was in the ‘same’ car at Jerez last February - demonstrating the evolution that an F1 car undergoes during the season.
As had been the case on Tuesday, the times fell away in the afternoon. Another red flag flew after lunch as a concrete kerb suffered some damage but after that it was a solid afternoon of running with many drivers settling into long stints and race simulations. Räikkönen once again pushed harder than most and had an excursion and Felipe Massa for Ferrari managed to get all four wheels off track at the same time, but otherwise everyone was very well behaved and didn’t seriously challenge Schumacher’s earlier time.
'I am now looking forward to driving our 2012 car for the first time at the next test.'
"We made the most of a reliable car today to do lots of laps and learn a lot about the new Pirelli tyres, and how they perform on longer and shorter runs, and with different set-up configurations,” said the seven-times World Champion. It was a good and productive test, full of lots of useful information for the season ahead, and I am now looking forward to driving our 2012 car for the first time at the next test."
Schumacher will also be happy to post 132 laps – double a race distance – on his first full day of running, at a very consistent pace, suggesting his fitness is right where it should be. Also going through 100 laps were Ricciardo, Räikkönen and, Kovalainen, the latter making up for a troubled test yesterday with a distance-leading 139 laps today.
Daniel Ricciardo - Copyright: Red Bull Photofiles
Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo was probably the pick of the bunch today on the track where he topped the timesheets on his F1 testing debut two winters back. Handing over to Jean-Eric Vergne for the last two days, Ricciardo pronounced himself pleased with his day’s work: “I am happy with what we did today,” said Daniel. “We achieved our aim of getting plenty of miles for me and the car with a mix of short and long runs, trying three different tyre compounds. I also did some practice starts and pit entry tests, just about as much as one can do in one day. We have made progress and were even able to do some back-to-back runs to start finding out how the car reacts to set-up changes.”
Elsewhere, the interesting thing was the mixed messages coming out of Ferrari. Down in seventh position and over a second adrift of Red Bull, the official line from Ferrari was a very sensible, ‘Times don’t mean anything at this stage’. Massa, however, expanded that to saying the team have ‘A lot of work’ ahead of them, possibly suggesting that the correlation between wind tunnel and track isn’t quite what they expected.
Tomorrow is the main changeover day with many of the driver who haven’t run yet getting their chance, notably World Champions Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel.
JEREZ TESTING FINISHING TIMES
1. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m18.561s 132laps
2. Mark Webber Red Bull 1m19.184s + 0.623 97laps
3. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1m19.587s + 1.026 100laps
4. Jules Bianchi Force India 1m20.221s + 1.660 46laps
5. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus 1m20.239s + 1.678 117laps
6. Paul di Resta Force India 1m20.272s + 1.711 69laps
7. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m20.454s + 1.893 95laps
8. Jenson Button McLaren 1m20.688s + 2.127 85laps
9. Sergio Perez Sauber 1m20.711s + 2.150 68laps
10. Pastor Maldonado Williams 1m21.197s + 2.636 97laps
11. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham 1m21.518s + 2.957 139laps
12. Pedro de la Rosa HRT 1m22.128s + 3.567 64laps
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