2011 F1 testing day 2: Valencia

2011 F1 testing

Posted on

| Written by

Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, Valencia, 2011

Testing for the 2011 season continues today at Valencia.

With Lotus set to join the test all 12 teams will be running together for the first time this year.

See below for details on today’s test session.

Circuit

Today’s test is at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, Spain:


View Larger Map

Direction: Anti-clockwise
Length: 4.005km
Fastest lap (all-time): 1’08.540 (Anthony Davidson, Honda, 2006)

The permanent track just outside Valencia, a short distance from the street track which hosts the European Grand Prix.

It has a short and compact configuration which does not have the kind of long straights seen on most modern F1 tracks. With lots of corners packed closely together it is most similar to the Hungaroring of the tracks on the 2011 F1 calendar.

Drivers

The following drivers will be participating in today’s test:

TeamCarDriver
Red BullRB7Sebastian Vettel (am), Mark Webber (pm)
McLarenMP4-25Lewis Hamilton
FerrariF150Fernando Alonso
MercedesW02Nico Rosberg
RenaultR31Robert Kubica
WilliamsFW33Rubens Barrichello (am), Pastor Maldonado (pm)
Force IndiaVJM03Paul di Resta
SauberC30Sergio Perez
Toro RossoSTR6Sebastien Buemi
LotusT128Heikki Kovalainen
HRTF110Narain Karthikeyan
VirginVR-01Timo Glock

Best laps at the test so far

DriverCarBest time
Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault RB71’13.769
Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes VJM031’13.939
Gary PaffettMcLaren-Mercedes MP4-251’14.292
Fernando AlonsoFerrari F1501’14.553
Kamui KobayashiSauber-Ferrari C301’15.621
Jerome d’AmbrosioVirgin-Cosworth VR-011’16.003
Vitaly PetrovRenault R311’16.351
Michael SchumacherMercedes W021’16.45
Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari STR61’17.214
Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth FW331’17.335
Narain KarthikeyanHRT-Cosworth F1101’18.02

Best laps at this circuit in 2010

TeamCarTimeDriver
FerrariF101’11.470Fernando Alonso
SauberC291’12.056Kamui Kobayashi
McLarenMP4-251’12.256Lewis Hamilton
RenaultR301’12.426Robert Kubica
MercedesW011’12.438Michael Schumacher
Toro RossoSTR51’12.576Jaime Alguersuari
WilliamsFW321’13.377Rubens Barrichello

Not present at this test in 2010: Red Bull, Lotus, HRT, Virgin

Live coverage

You can find live timing on the Williams website here:

I am at the circuit for the test and will post updates via Twitter and reply to comments when I can below.

Follow me and everyone else at the test via Twitter using the Live F1 Twitter app (no Twitter account needed).

2011 F1 testing

    Browse all 2011 F1 testing articles

    Image © Julien Leroy / firstlap.be

    Author information

    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

    Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

    89 comments on “2011 F1 testing day 2: Valencia”

    1. Plan is to get up early, go to the gym and be back intime to catch 90% of the testing.

      Interested to see what the Lotus looks like in the flesh and guess how far, if any, theyve gone up the grid based purley on their times tomorrow. I love the insanity and speculation of testing, keeps us on our toes and something to talk about.

      1. Do they air the testing sessions in Europe?

        1. No, but i have about 5-8 tabs open on my browser for the text based services. If only we had video :(

    2. US Williams Fan
      2nd February 2011, 0:18

      Thanks for the update! good to see all 12 teams testing today.

      minor typo: “With Lotus set to join the tst ” tst = test I’m sure.

      Also, thanks for the Williams link. My favorite team… you think I would know that they have live timing….. but was not aware of that.

      1. No, it’s tst. The word has been offficially changed. It happened overnight. Didn’t you hear about it?

        1. US Williams Fan
          2nd February 2011, 2:20

          Thanks Prisoner Monkeys!

          Usually the good people a Webster’s Dictionary call my cell whenever they change a word. Guess they are getting lazy. :)

          1. US Williams Fan
            2nd February 2011, 2:25

            a=at

            whoops!

            1. No, that’s another change they’ve made. We say ‘a’ instead of ‘at’ now.

            2. And summit instead of something… ;-)

            3. During this tst I am a home.

          2. PM, stop pulling the legs of our US F1 fan ;)

    3. HRT really should have signed their second driver by now, very professional. I’m starting to doubt whether they’ll actually have their car ready for the bahrain test. With such little development time because of the toyota dispute they’ll almost certainly be the slowest this year as well.

      1. Surly its obvious? Kartikeyans gonna cane it for all its worth until it breaks down, hop in the next car and carry on going!

      2. HRT really should have signed their second driver by now, very professional.

        There is nothing in the rules to say that teams must have two drivers present at every test.

        I’m starting to doubt whether they’ll actually have their car ready for the bahrain test.

        According to Adam Cooper, development of the F111 chassis is “much further along than you might think”.

        1. They’re holding the second seat open until liuzzi’s court case is avoided, I reckon. But that’s just speculation.

          1. Oh, and does your avatar have anything to do with the movie inception?

            1. wrong spot, that question was directed at you PM.

            2. does your avatar have anything to do with the movie inception?

              It does. It’s Cobb’s totem, the spinning top.

        2. Considering that they announced that they were building a new car 75 days before the first race…and according to Mike Gasgoyne Lotus Racing had 80 days to design and develop the T127…I’d say they’ve got the time…

    4. Does Kubica have a new helmet? It seems fit for him to change his helmet if he colored it based on last years car, when this years car has a very different paint job.

      1. Yeah, he’s got a red and carbon fibre-print one now. As lead driver, he’s also got the red camera mounting on his car, so the red endplates and wing mirrors won’t look totally out of place.

        Come to think of it, Petrov has red on his helmet and his camera mounting will be yellow, which is close enought to the gold to blend in a little.

        1. Do you have any pics of the helmet?

        2. I love Kubica’s helmet (last year and this years). They remind me of a lego man :)

      2. My favourite was his start-of-2006 one.

    5. Anyone manage to get any live webcasts of the testing yesterday?

      1. only live timings so far, and several text versions covering (on bbc and others).

    6. Does Anthony Davidson appear anywhere else in Formula 1’s record books, or is this the unfortunate extent of his impact on the sport?

      1. Last driver to date to hit a groundhog, perhaps?

    7. Shame this season I won’t be able to catch too much testing because of my work & uni. Interestingly only Williams is the only team that is doing the live timing with no other team.

    8. Aha….at last we get to see the Lotus in action. On a quick note, d’Ambrosio in the Virgin got himself respectably in the midfield in the first test, so I’m hoping for something more polisted from Lotus.

    9. Keith, could you ask the Scuderia how they’re going to practice giving Massa team orders if they’ve only got one car at the track? Cheers.

      Also, if you see Fernando tell him we’re all looking forward to the new Pirates of the Caribbean film too.

      1. US Williams Fan
        2nd February 2011, 2:23

        hahaha.

      2. I was so thinking of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum when I saw Fernando’s little beard thing for the first time.

        1. I was thinking how he’s two time world champion, rich and how I’m in no way jealous and/or bored with my own life.

    10. I love how HRT have and will continue to have no idea what their car is capable of as they have kept exactly zero of their previous drivers (baring a surprise visit from our favorite snails pace pay driver, Yamamoto) and gain relatively little talent. If I were them, I think I would have tried to hire one of the test/unemployed drivers with serious experience to test the car for 2-3 days during the second or third set of testing. I’m just hoping that their last place finish wasn’t a low fuel, qualifying simulation run…

      1. At least Karthikeyan gets experience on the new Pirellis.

      2. Karthikeyan was within 5 seconds of Vettel’s time… they were probably running a Q3 setup on the car.

        1. No, Vettel was going it slow with the new car not to damage anything.

          1. He certainly wasn’t going slow.
            Not as quick as he could maybe.

          2. I thought he meant HRT had Q3 setup, lol.

            1. That is what i meant. Karthikeyan would be more than 8 secs off the pace if the red bull were running a Q3 setup

    11. Kubica straight in there with a 1:18.230

    12. Does anybody know anything about why Mercedes staff is still sleeping? :))

    13. Karun Chhandhok has arrived wearing Team Lotus’s colours

    14. Vetel is flying; 1:13.802

      1. the lap before was even better 1:13.614

    15. Now from memory, am I right in thinking that this track doesn’t really test the cars? i.e. its better to wait until a more representative track is being used to guess who’s fast and who’s not?

    16. Hamilton 1st lap of 2011 = 1:16.446

      1. Got to remember this is a red herring as it’s the old car and any times set by either McLaren or Force India is basically null and void at the moment.

        1. Yes, I know, surely gotta be worrying for Mclaren if they are slower in last years car

          1. Not really, it’s just a test and the priority has to be getting mileage on the new tyres and testing any new parts.

            Quick times are pretty low priority, especially when using a car that was a proven front runner.

          2. Just to add, the car they’re using IS 2010’s, but they’ve removed the double diffuser as well as simulating 2011 downforce (a combination of removing some aero parts and adding others).

            And yes, they are of course on Pirelli’s.

    17. i’ve been thinking about Renaults new exhaust…

      its fine testing it at valencia in 15’c weather but I wonder what will happen in the dessert, perhaps BLACK wasn’t such a great colour to choose after all, them drivers are going to bake out there even without the FFE

      1. Yeah, but they will probably argue that its been tested to X degrees and run for X amount of time to prove that it will be ok. Im sure it probably will, they wouldnt have put it on like that if wouldnt.

        But this is F1, and as Murray Walker will tell you, where anything can happen, and it usually does. Black, desert suns and new “inovative” exhaust system will be what everyone will be watching…

        1. Why the quotation marks? It really is innovative, even though it wasn’t presented by one of the top teams.

          And whether it works or not, is a different matter.

          1. Yeah Sandman, if they did not copy it from the MP4-26 ….. Arrgggghhhh!! :(

            1. Yeah BBQ2, if MP4-26 did not copy it from the R31.

            2. How can you copy something from a car that is still in the factory?

            3. “How can you copy something from a car that is still in the factory?”

              By taking on someone from the other team?

              Same happenend with Toyota in 2009. They got the double diffuser idea from a guy they hired from Honda.

            4. Still, if they managed to run it first, im guessing it was a genuine idea. Its not THAT revolutionary if you think about it, its “just” an evolution of blown diffusor.

    18. Keith, how many laps has Lewis done?

    19. live timing with lap-by-lap timing for every drivers (click on name) http://bit.ly/fyEscA

      1. A most useful site. Thanks for that.

        1. yep, now i know you can click on the driver for lap times that is pretty darn good, thanks

      2. Mister Nillionaire
        2nd February 2011, 11:10

        Thank you for this. It’s easily the best one out there.

      3. That’s great. Ho do you get that data?

    20. I know we shouldn’t read too much into testing times. But am I safe to assume that Red Bull will be one of the front runners again?

      1. i think mclaren, redbull, renault, mercedes ferrari

        but i’ve been know to be wrong

        1. Would be cool if you’re right. Imagine 5 out of 12 teams being true front runners and contenders for the title.

          1. that would be good to watch but i actually meant it as a pecking order….maybe its just wishful thinking

          2. That would be great… 6 to 7 different race winners, and different cars strong on different types of circuits. I think if we could get a season with as many title contenders as last year, it could be the best season of all time, especially because the last race isn’t in Abu Dhabi anymore.

      2. unless they go and do a Mclaren for the first 9 races of 2009. Id expect that the grids grouping wont change at the front, Mclaren, Ferrari and RBR leading the way, with Renault & Mercedes following them up.

        But all will come clear in Bahrain.

    21. your right on the money there SJM, until Bahrain Q3 were never really gonna know anything

    22. Am I mistaken, or Kubica is running two cars today? Photos on formula1.com show him driving number 9 and 10 cars.

    23. di Resta goes faster than Hulkenberg with a 1:13.844

      1. He is looking very good. I mean being rookie he has done decent job even though the car is 2010 car

    24. When are Force India launching their 2011 car?

      1. Not sure, but given how long it took to announce their driver lineup, i wouldnt like to say ;)

      2. It’s going to be at the Jerez test, i’m pretty sure.

    25. Have Lotus-Renault descided that Black & gold the wrong choice and now trying to use Team Lotus’s livery? :D

      http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-photos/6455/formula-1-test-at-circuito-ricardo-tormo-2-february-2011/169097/#169097

    26. SJM

      Good one.

    27. What are Lotus(green) timings? msfree site is only showing top 11.

      1. Heikki has only done 6 recon laps and hasn’t actually set a timed lap yet, apparently due to brake problems.

        1. They posted a tweet saying that is the end of the testing for today, apparently a power steering problem they have to get repaired in the UK over night!

    28. just read vettels happy to stay at redbull and is not interested in switching to ferrari – i bet he is, after all he has a personality of his own and he’s no where arrogant enough to join the red team

    Comments are closed.