Barcelona day 2: Perez just in front of Vettel

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Barcelona day 2: Perez just in front of Vettel

Published on 20 Feb 2013 17:12
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By: Danny Sosef

Sergio Pérez was the fastest of everyone at the Circuit de Catalunya today, with a lap of 1:21.848. The Mexican set his lap on a one-lap stint on the soft tyres - yellow marking. The closest man to Pérez's time was the reigning world champion, Sebastian Vettel.
Also known as 'Checo', he completed 97 laps of the circuit during the day in order to improve his understanding of the track and car. In the morning the team were trying to understand the relationship between the aerodynamics of the car on track and when in the wind-tunnel. To do this Pérez did lots of short runs. McLaren were also looking at how the car changes with different mechanical set-ups.
When the afternoon session came, he did much longer runs so that he knew some of the key things about his new car - that might have been different on the Sauber C31. These included cockpit switch adjustments and understanding radio messaging.
Vettel was fastest before the teams stopped for lunch, but when the cars returned to the track, the German brought the red flag out and in doing so ended his day of running. This was due to a tyre not being fitted to his RB9 properly - something Red Bull will want to stop by Melbourne.

The 25 year old said, "Obviously we wanted to run a bit longer - and that didnt work, but better have issues here - after all this is a test - than later on in the season. Wed done several pit stops and obviously at the last one the wheel wasn't fixed properly. That was the reason I couldn't go out again. But again, nothing really to worry about."
Räikkönen continued to show off the Lotus' pace by finishing 3rd fastest, however he also had problems during the day. The Finn had to sit out most of the morning due to a gearbox problem, but his fastest time was set on the medium tyre - white marking.
If yesterday wasn't an ideal day then today was more of the same. Fortunately, once we were able to get a lap in we could see that the car has good pace. We test to find any problems so in that respect were doing a good job, but its frustrating.

Its no secret that we want to get more laps on the board and thats the target for the rest of this test and the final sessions next week," said Räikkönen.
Hamilton hit the track for the first time this week, finishing 4th fastest. He completed almost double the length of the Spanish Grand Prix - 121 laps, the most of everyone.

He said, "We had a good day today and it was nice to get so many laps in, we're making continual steps forward in terms of our understanding of the set-up and the tyres. The hard compound work in particular was pretty good today, although all of tyres are showing degradation so looking after them isn't easy.

The second day for the F138 to be driven with Alonso at the wheel was today, but an exhaust problem prevented him from finishing the team's programme. In the two days of testing so far for the Spaniard, he has completed 176 laps.

Valtteri Bottas was 6th fastest, driving the new FW35 for the first time after it was revealed yesterday. Ricciardo and Paul di Resta weren't far behind either, in 7th and 8th place.

Sauber's Nico Hülkenberg was 9th, with Chilton beating Pic to 10th place.

F1 News Valtteri Bottas Sebastian Vettel Nico Hülkenberg McLaren Lotus F1 Sauber