How the teams fared at 2014’s first F1 pre-season test

Force India

Those who were expecting Force India to be the dark horse of the 2014 season would be fairly disappointed with their performance. Force India only managed to do more laps than the three Renault powered cars and Marussia, who only took part during the final two days of the Jerez test. However, by Friday and the final of the first of three pre-season tests, Force India had found a permanent solution to their problems, and Daniel Juncadella, the team’s new reserve driver, had racked up a total of 81 laps.

Still, with their race drivers Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg only completing 48 and 17 laps respectively, questions will undoubtedly be raised on how the Silverstone team scheduled their drivers’ outings in this four-day test. They will have to give their main drivers a lot more time in Bahrain as adapting to F1’s new regulations is not an easy task, not even for the drivers.

Sauber

Adrian Sutil, who moves to Sauber after spending his entire F1 career with Force India and its predecessor Spyker, completed just over 103 laps around Jerez but had two trips to the gravel trap. He cited cold tyres and the extra torque of F1’s new V6 engines as the cause of the first incident on Day 3.

“On the last one the tyres lost a lot of temperature, it caught me by surprise when I accelerated out of the corner, shifting up from third to fourth on a straight line, and suddenly the car snapped and I went off,” Sutil said about his rather strange accident.

Esteban Gutierrez ran during the first two days of the test when most teams were busy solving their problems and doing system checks instead of long runs. That’s why the Mexican only managed 60 laps and a spin on turn 5 of the 13-corner Jerez circuit.

Toro Rosso

Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso also suffered from the problems which were consistent with all the Renault powered cars. That meant the Faenza based team only managed 54 laps around Jerez. That puts them third in the list, albeit from the back. Daniil Kvyat didn’t complete a single lap on Wednesday due to a problem with the energy recovery system and on Friday, he managed just nine laps before his STR9 came to a halt.

However, the Russian pointed out the positive aspects of the test and is confident that Toro Rosso will be in better shape in the second test in Bahrain.

“As a rookie with so much to learn, this week in Jerez has not been the start I would have wanted,” Kvyat said. “However, I trust my team and I trust Renault, so with some hard work, I am sure we can be in better shape and start to catch up at the next test. There have been a few positives, because we have acquired some useful data, even with limited running. Some questions have therefore already been answered and I was able to get a feel for the car in wet conditions,” he went on.

Williams

Williams ended the session on a positive note with Felipe Massa finishing the final test on top with 1m 23.700s. The team has switched to Mercedes engines and hired the services of Felipe Massa, who comes into replace Pastor Maldonado, putting an end to the troubled relationship between the two parties.

Massa was pleased with the efforts of his new recruiters and believes the team made decent progress over the course of four days in terms of reliability.

“Today we didn’t have any issues with the car which I think is also another step forward,” Massa said after the final day of Jerez test. “We now need to concentrate and prepare with an aim to do more laps per day in Bahrain. Overall, I’m happy with my first days with Williams and I’m pleased with what I have seen in the team this week.”

Valtteri Bottas completed 42 laps, but his running on the second day was limited by an issue with the rear suspension.

Marussia

Marussia’s 2014 car made it out of the factory and into F1’s traditional home of testing on Thursday and completed more laps than four-time double title winner Red Bull. Max Chilton completed five laps on Thursday and Jules Bianchi added 25 more on Friday to take the team’s tally to a total of 30 laps.

Marussia sporting director said he was “reasonably happy” with the MR03’s first outing.

“You never know when you go into testing just what you’re going to come up against but I think we can be reasonably happy. We viewed it that this is our second day of testing rather than the fourth day and we’ve learned a lot. That’s what testing’s all about so we’ve got enough good data now to put a programme together ahead of Bahrain. So all in all we can be really quite happy with the progress so far,” he said.

Caterham

Caterham revealed their car midday through the first day of the Jerez test and over the course of four days, did more laps than any of the Renault powered teams.

Caterham sports a new lineup in the form of returnee Kamui Kobayashi and GP2 driver Marcus Ericsson, and the team have been given clear instructions by boss Tony Fernandes that if the results don’t come this season, he will pull out of the sport.

As far as the performance and mileage are concerned, Kobayashi in his first official F1 session since 2012 completed 54 laps on day four with a best time of 1m 43.193s. Most of these laps were done in the damp conditions during the first part of the day.

STATISTICS

1. Kevin Magnussen, McLaren, 1m 23.276s, 162 laps2. Felipe Massa, Williams, 1m 23.700s, 133 laps3. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1m 23.952s, 121 laps4. Jenson Button, McLaren, 1m 24.165s, 83 laps5. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1m 24.812s, 78 laps6. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1m 25.344s, 42 laps7. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, 1m 25.495s, 173 laps8. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1m 25.588s, 188 laps9. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1m 26.096s, 17 laps10. Sergio Perez, Force India, 1m 28.376s, 48 laps11. Daniel Juncadella, Force India, 1m 29.457s, 81 laps12. Jean-Eric Vergne, Toro Rosso, 1m 29.915s, 45 laps13. Adrian Sutil, Sauber, 1m 30.161s, 103 laps14. Jules Bianchi, Marussia, 1m 32.222s, 25 laps15. Esteban Gutierrez, Sauber, 1m 33.270s, 60 laps16. Marcus Ericsson, Caterham, 1m 37.975s, 12 laps17. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 1m 38.320s, 11 laps18. Kamui Kobayashi, Caterham, 1m 43.193s, 54 laps19. Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, 1m 44.016s, 9 laps20. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1m 45.374s, 10 laps21. Robin Frijns, Caterham, No time, 10 laps22. Max Chilton, Marussia, No time, 5 laps

Total laps – By team

1. Mercedes, 3092. Ferrari, 2513. McLaren (Mercedes), 2454. Williams (Mercedes), 1755. Sauber (Ferrari), 1636. Force India (Mercedes), 1467. Caterham (Renault), 768. Toro Rosso (Renault), 549. Marussia (Ferrari), 3010. Red Bull (Renault), 21

Total laps – by power unit manufacturer

1. Mercedes, 875 (4 teams)2. Ferrari, 444 (3 teams)3. Renault, 151 (3 teams)

Total laps – By drivers

1. Rosberg 1882. Alonso 1733. Magnussen 1614. Massa 1335. Sutil 1036. Button 837. Juncadella 818. Hamilton 809. Raikkonen 7810. Gutierrez 6011. Kobayashi 5412. Perez 4813. Vergne 4514. Bottas 4215. Bianchi 2516. Hulkenburg 1717. Ericsson 1218. Vettel 1119. Ricciardo 1020. Frijns 1021. Kyvat 922. Chilton 5