Perez fastest in his last test before F1 debut
2011 F1 testing
Sergio Perez, Sauber, Barcelona, 2011
Sergio Perez put Sauber on top on the third day of testing at Barcelona – his last test before making his F1 debut in Melbourne.
And unlike his fastest time on Tuesday, he didn’t cut the track in order to set his fastest time.
His lap of 1’21.761, set during the morning, is the fastest lap seen at the Circuit de Catalunya so far this year, beating Sebastian Vettel’s best effort from yesterday by a tenth of a second.
Perez had a problem later in the session, however, coming to a stop at the end of the pit lane in his Sauber. He was able to join the track again shortly afterwards.
The next two drivers on the times sheet were also in their last test before the first race.
Felipe Massa was second fastest for Ferrari, who have now accumulated more than a season’s worth of racing mileage on their 150° Italia – over 6,100km.
Mark Webber was third for Red Bull.
Williams did not run KERS on Rubens Barrichello’s car today after experiencing more problems with it yesterday. However they still caused two stoppages – one shortly before the lunch break and another half an hour before the test was due to end.
A third red flag was caused by Jerome d’Ambrosio in the Virgin earlier on.
Renault split their running between Vitaly Petrov and Nick Heidfeld. The German driver back in the car after his Tuesday running was cut short as he was unwell.
Lotus also ran two drivers today, with Heikki Kovalainen taking over from Jarno Trulli. But they were delayed by reliability problems again, and further frustrated when a replacement radiator they had flown in broke during transit.
| Driver | Car | Best time | Laps | Difference | |
| 1 | Sergio Perez | Sauber-Ferrari C30 | 1’21.761 | 95 | |
| 2 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari 150° Italia | 1’22.092 | 132 | 0.331 |
| 3 | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault RB7 | 1’22.466 | 97 | 0.705 |
| 4 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth FW33 | 1’22.637 | 105 | 0.876 |
| 5 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes W02 | 1’22.892 | 89 | 1.131 |
| 6 | Nick Heidfeld | Renault R31 | 1’23.541 | 32 | 1.780 |
| 7 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Renault T128 | 1’23.990 | 40 | 2.229 |
| 8 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault R31 | 1’24.233 | 24 | 2.472 |
| 9 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes VJM04 | 1’24.334 | 108 | 2.573 |
| 10 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR6 | 1’24.779 | 107 | 3.018 |
| 11 | Jerome d’Ambrosio | Virgin-Cosworth MVR-02 | 1’27.336 | 96 | 5.575 |
| 12 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Renault T128 | 1’34.485 | 6 | 12.724 |
2011 F1 season
- New video of Maldonado and Hamilton’s Monaco crash
- How well do you remember the 2011 F1 season? Take the F1 Fanatic quiz
- The 2011 F1 season: The complete F1 Fanatic review
- Your 2011 F1 predictions revisited
- Barrichello tipped to stay at Williams
- 2011 F1 statistics part 3: Stats and facts highlights
- 2011 F1 statistics part two: Vettel’s domination
- 2011 F1 statistics part one: car performance
- New 2011 rules produced best racing of last four years
- What F1 Fanatics really thought of the 2011 season
Browse all 2011 F1 season articles
Ben N said on 10th March 2011, 16:09
I know we can’t take much from testing… but I think we could be in for some surprises this season…
Adam Tate (@adam-tate) said on 10th March 2011, 18:09
I agree Ben, I surely hope so!
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner) said on 10th March 2011, 19:20
I hope so too. To actually beat Vettel over-all by a tenth is quite a big thing. Still…let’s not get excited until race conditions.
Shimks said on 10th March 2011, 16:11
I’ve got my fingers crossed for Sauber. I hope they do well and gain a few more sponsors. A few more apart from the hundreds of millionaires who have opted to join ‘Sauber Club One’, I mean.
;O)
Shimks said on 10th March 2011, 16:13
By the way – completely off-topic – where do I add my avatar after creating an account?
DeadManWoking said on 10th March 2011, 16:20
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/f1-information/f1-faq/f1-fanatic-faq/#avatar
Calum said on 10th March 2011, 18:32
They have Telmex – is that Carlos Slim’s company, he is still richest man according to Forbes.
Henry said on 10th March 2011, 16:12
Not really…that was a super low fuel run…and the reporters in the know have said sauber and torro rosso are right up there with renault, Mclaren, Mercedes: 5 teams which we will not be sure of their outright pace for a while yet, not till after the checkered flag in Melbourne…
If the Red Bull went out and did a super low fuel lap on fast tyres, I think they may get into the high 1.20s…we will wait and see in expectation! But hats off to Sauber, clearly they have a good start of season car!
King Six said on 10th March 2011, 16:12
Probably cut the chicane again, nobody noticed this time.
Dougy D said on 10th March 2011, 16:16
Hmm, de us vu. Didn’t saber do well this time last year also only to then fall back in the race. Are they still fishing for sponsors?
Shimks said on 10th March 2011, 16:19
Yes.
sw6569 (@sw6569) said on 10th March 2011, 16:16
Virgin seems like its doomed to be at the rear of the grid which is a shame. Was hoping it might be able to scrape a point
BasCB (@bascb) said on 10th March 2011, 19:28
Well ,they seem to have just about as much reliability issues as Team Lotus, Torro Rosso, Sauber and Williams. But speed is not really there, so they might be making up the back with McLAren, Mercedes and HRT!
BasCB (@bascb) said on 10th March 2011, 19:31
A shame the Honda sportscar looks more sculpted and refined than Virgins F1 car (it looks good compared to that Aston Martin and the Peugeot)
http://www.racecar-engineering.com/news/honda-arx-01e-revealed/
Tom said on 10th March 2011, 16:19
Given Williams were not running KERS today, it looks like they may have produced quite a fast (but rather fragile) car.
BasCB (@bascb) said on 10th March 2011, 19:40
But Renault too were having issues with KERS, as well as Sauber.
Shimks said on 10th March 2011, 16:22
Kovalainen was almost 11 seconds faster than Trulli in the same car today. That just goes to show the difference in the quality of these two drivers!
VXR said on 10th March 2011, 16:26
I hope that was ‘tongue-in-cheek’ ?
rui said on 10th March 2011, 16:31
Sauber was hidding us a REAL something, but before getting too exited we have to remember last season sauber’s testing. But in my case, i feel this time is lightly different from last season.
And don’t forget Perez (of course Kamui will rock-on-track), keep an eye on perez.
simone said on 10th March 2011, 17:34
No, its the same, pure show of…
rui said on 10th March 2011, 18:01
Dontmisunderstandme -> RedBull and Ferrary are ahead of all, just i expected sauber near the bottom, this put them back to fight with mercedes, williams and renault whom havent show us what they got, but cant be far better from sauber’s.
McG (@mcg) said on 10th March 2011, 16:36
Wow Sauber must be the team to beat.
silencer said on 10th March 2011, 16:38
No..
HRT is the team to beat…
:D
VXR said on 10th March 2011, 16:45
And tomorrow we find out!
They should be a good deal much better than they were last season, however little testing they do.
S.J.M (@sjm) said on 10th March 2011, 19:28
im genuinley looking forward to tomorrow, to see if HRT are there or not. HRT is the F1 equivalent to an episode of Lost, so many questions that need answering that only lead to more questions. Will they be there? will it be this years car? will it still have filled the “This is a cool spot” advert space? Sooo many questions.
karan01 (@karan01) said on 11th March 2011, 7:31
Sauber did this last year aswell.
My bet is it is purely public relations.
F1iLike said on 10th March 2011, 16:52
This is interesting. Perez setting the fastest time says more about the rest of teams than it does about Sauber. Definitely this is a pure qualifying try and makes one wonder how much faster Red Bull and Ferrari really is..
Rob Wilson said on 10th March 2011, 16:56
My thoughts exactly, if a Sauber can come up with this sort of lap time when they take the fuel out what kind of time is an rb7 going to set with low fuel…Maybe on the last day we’ll see?
VXR said on 10th March 2011, 17:18
No one will be setting any fast lap times on the last day of testing.
Lee said on 10th March 2011, 17:58
Rain rain rain rain
BasCB (@bascb) said on 10th March 2011, 19:41
but rain is coming only later afternoon, so they might be doing some fast times before lunch or right after lunch.
Mac v2 said on 10th March 2011, 16:55
Well Massa did a quali run as well, fell short .3 sec
Rob Wilson said on 10th March 2011, 17:06
That settles it then, Kobayashi to win the Championship. Nah the Sauber isn’t exactly going to be the fastest car after being average all the other days is it..I doubt the true potential of most other teams has been shown yet.
joac21 (@joac21) said on 10th March 2011, 17:03
VIVA MEXICOOO!
BasCB (@bascb) said on 11th March 2011, 6:29
Perez looks like a very good driver to have in that car, I am looking forward to seeing him racing. If that Sauber is half up to the job they will be a wonder to watch again this year.
I saw Esteban Gutierrez (did I spell that right?) is going states side now. I hope he gets back as well, he looks very good as well.
Bring on the Mexican GP rumours. At least Austin is relatively close by!
Robbie (@robbie) said on 10th March 2011, 17:09
Regardless, even if Sauber surprise some in testing, even if they start the season stronger than most expect, they won’t be able to keep up to the pace of development throughout the season of several top teams on the grid. Not to mention their driver pairing is far weaker than several of the teams’. A one-off lap in testing is night and day different from racing in anger.
BasCB (@bascb) said on 10th March 2011, 19:43
Well, this is one of the few teams that actually have the ressources in house to do that kind of development.
So compared to the FI, Williams, STR, Lotus and possibly Mercedes they might have a small advantage in developments.
VXR said on 10th March 2011, 17:12
From BBC website:
“Technical director James Key said this was the first time the team had run the car on a low fuel load and that Perez “did a good and controlled set of laps, setting a time of 1:22.042 minutes on soft tyres and 1:21.761 on the super-soft compound”.”
ed24f1 (@ed24f1) said on 10th March 2011, 17:29
The super-soft tyres aren’t even at this test, it’s only the soft and hard tyres.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/89776
BasCB (@bascb) said on 10th March 2011, 19:43
So that might have been on the hards and softs respectively.
Not too bad then.