Jerez day 1: Button on top, false start for Mercedes

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Jerez day 1: Button on top, false start for Mercedes

Published on 05 Feb 2013 18:01
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By: Danny Sosef

The first Pre-season testing session was today at the Jerez circuit in Spain, after the Marussia MR02 and the Caterham CT03.

It was Button who topped the timing charts at the end of the session, but three laps into his first stint on the track his MP4-28 stopped, bringing out a red flag. The team got the problem sorted and Button completed 37 laps in total. His fastest time was set on the hardest compound available, the orange marked Pirelli tyre - 1:18.861.

Mark Webber was in the RB9's cockpit and he was second fastest with a time of 1:19.709. Unlike Button, the Aussie didn't encounter any problems. After the days work he said, "it was actually like a Friday practice session in some regards. We started understanding the tyres and there were a lot of positives. Theres a bit of housekeeping we have to get on top of but, other than that, its been encouraging."

"The car feels similar to last years, so the main difference is the tyres. With these tyres youre always on your toes. It was good that we had consistent temperatures today, so we got a lot of information and feedback to analyse, which is all good. Generally though, the car feels pretty good, so Im happy.

0.087 seconds slower that Webber was Romain Grosjean, who got his E21 around 3rd fastest. He set the time early on in the session but didn't better it.

Paul di Resta drove the most laps (89) and set a time of 1:20.343. Di Resta explained that he "felt very comfortable all day and we managed to get through the program as we focused on collecting aero data and understanding how well the car correlates with our simulation tools at the factory."

"We also started trying to learn as much about the tyres as possible so that we can carry that into tomorrow and optimize the set-up. The new compounds are quite different with the new construction and I've already felt a difference with the balance of the car in the low and high speed parts of the lap.

5th was Daniel Ricciardo just ahead of Felipe Massa in 6th. Nico Hülkenberg brought his Sauber home in 7th place and Rosberg was in 8th.

With Hamilton watching his new teammate going around the track, the German started to slow down with smoke coming from the rear of the car. An electrical fault caused this and a change of a wiring loom resulted in Rosberg having to sit out the rest of the day.

In the 2012 spec Williams, Maldonado was 9th and van der Garde was 10th.

Max Chilton said his session couldnt have got off to a better start at the lunch break, but a suspension problem put the Brit in the gravel trap. This left him down in 11th place.

The next pre-season testing session is tomorrow.