Red Bull Racing: “In all, it was a good test”

Published on 03 March 2017 by Niels Hendrix

The final day of the first test in Barcelona marked a departure from the past three days’ activity, with the track being made wet in order to conduct testing of Pirelli’s intermediate and full wet 2017 tyres. Max Verstappen took over driving duties from Daniel Ricciardo and after testing both wet weather compounds, the Dutchman also got in some dry running on the soft compound tyre to record the day’s second fastest time with a lap of 1:21.769.

Red Bull Racing head of race engineering Guillaume Rocquelin said: “While I don’t imagine anyone would say the conditions today were perfect, as some parts of the track were dry and others wet, it was still a very interesting exercise. We’re discovering new things all the time about the tyres and how they interact with the car – warm-up, degradation levels etc – so we did find out some things we wouldn’t have unless we had been through this process. 

“Like everybody, we did most of our wet running in the morning and then later on we had the chance to get in a bit more work on slicks, which was useful. We chose not to run when the track was damp as there wasn’t really much point and we thought we might also have a recurrence of yesterday’s exhaust problem, though that turned out not to be the case.”

“In all, it was a good test. Yes, we had a few problems, which cost us some track time, but the fundamentals are good: car control is good, the balance is good, the feel is good. That’s a good platform for next week when we’ll get into race simulations and working on the best set-up for the car. For now, though, it’s back to the factory for a pretty intense weekend of homework.”