Posts tagged Hamilton

Another dry day in Barcelona on Sunday marked the final day official pre-season testing in Barcelona and it was a day full of the top teams all trading top times whilst drivers worked on final setup of the cars.

All the times were very close, with the top 8 times all being within less then 1 second of each other. Massa, Hamilton and Webber traded top time throu-out the day, with the fastest man in the end being Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren with a 1:20.472. Hamilton spent a lot of time behind the wheel, notching up over 130 laps. Mark Webber was second fastest and did less then half the laps of Hamilton. He showed that RedBull has a very fast car this year when he recored a 1:20.496.

Massa was 3rd quickest just infront of Force India’s Adrian Suttil. Red Bull were the only team who had both their drivers for this year in the top 5. Sebastian Vettel was 5th quickest with a 1:20.667. Sebastian managed to do around 10 more laps in the car then Mark Webber managed.  Sebastian’s fellow countryman and seven-time world champion, Michael Schumacher recorded 1:20.745 in the MercedesGP car to claim the 6th fastest time of the day.

Most teams were doing race distance simulations through the day and spending a lot of time measuring tyre wear.

RedBull allowed webber and Vettel to share the drives during the day due to both drivers having less time behind the wheel throughout testing, so they didn’t complete the same race distance simulations some othe teams did. None the less both of their drivers were on the pace placing in the top five.

With McLaren, RedBull, Ferrari and Mercedes all within a second of each other and holding out the top 5 spots on the timesheets. It appears the predictions that the title race this year could be a tight 4-way battle between said teams could prove to be true.

Massa emerged posative and said “We wanted a competitive car and I think we’ve achieved our goal. It’s difficult to say who worked best. Today the time sheet says Hamilton, but we’re all very close together, it’s just tenths of a second.” He did however mention that whilst they were very strong, he felt at this point they weren’t the strongest and needed to improve, but was very happy to be in the group of front runners.

Meanwhile, Michael Schumacher said “The four testing days here in Barcelona have helped us to make significant progress with the MGP W01 and I am feeling quite confident for the start of the season. It is always difficult to read too much into testing but knowing our programme, it is fair to say that the times did not always reflect the true picture. We have worked through many set-up and development evaluations this week and gained valuable information to study before Bahrain. We are heading the first race with a good feeling and we know that we will have our upgrades there. But most of all we know that our prospects for even the first races are looking very reasonable now.”

So at the end of the day, what do the times really mean? Well it is hard to judge, but the pace of the Ferrari’s, the McLarens, the RedBull’s and even Mercedes has been consitent thorugh-out the pre-season testing.

Massas is less then confident that his team will be the team to beat going into this season, however they have done more race-distance simulation and varying fuel load runs and varying tyre choice stints then other teams and they are still at the pointy end of the timesheets. Their car has also been very strong without many technical problems. They seem to have the pace and it appears that Ferrari are going to be one of the fastest teams in 2010, that cobined with obvioius reliability means the team should be a very strong title contender.

RedBull have had the apce, but not the ditance, meaning they have spent the least amount of time on the track compared to the otehr front runners. Engine reliability is also an issue for the team. They have the apce but could be let down by reliability.

McLaren were quickest over testing and have two very strong drivers. That combined with the reliability they have shown could mean that they are the team to rain on Ferrari’s parade and could also snatch the title this year.

Mercedes are also up their rounding out the top 4 teams. They have shown good strong pace at times, then also shown their pace can be a bit inconsitent. The team won last years championship and may not have done enough development on their 2010 package to fight with McLaren and Ferrari.

Time will tell however, with just 11 days left now till the first Friday practice in Bahrain, the teams have no more time for on-track testing. Will the practice sheets in Bahrain be reflective of Barcelona? most likely, yes.

A summary of the quickest laps from the final day in Barcelona are as follows:

1. Lewis Hamilton McLaren Mercedes 1:20.472 134
2. Mark Webber Red Bull 1:20.496 61
3. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:20.539 114
4. Adrian Sutil Force India 1:20.611 100
5. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1:20.667 76
6. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1:20.745 123
7. Rubens Barrichello Williams 1:20.870 84
8. Kamui Kobayashi BMW Sauber 1:20.911 67
9. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso 1:22.135 88
10. Robert Kubica Renault 1:23.175 107
11. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus 1:25.251 65
12. Lucas Di Grassi Virgin Racing 1:26.160 49