Schumacher fastest for Mercedes in Barcelona
2011 F1 testing
Michael Schumacher, Mercedes, Barcelona, 2011
Michael Schumacher was fastest in the revised Mercedes in the fourth day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya.
With rain threatening to hit tomorrow’s test the team sent Nico Rosberg out in the afternoon and he went third fastest, half a second slower than Schumacher.
Williams and Force India also split the day’s running between their two race drivers.
Fernando Alonso was second fastest for Ferrari. He completed over two race distances’ worth of running during the course of the day, logging 141 laps.
Heikki Kovalainen did the same despite Lotus’s previous reliability problems.
However Jenson Button spent much of the day in the pits as McLaren changed an engine in his car.
There were few interruptions during the day’s running, although Kamui Kobayashi caused one stoppage in the afternoon when his Sauber came to a halt at turn three.
Sebastian Vettel brought the red flags out a few minutes before the session was due to end when his Red Bull stopped at the end of the pit lane.
Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and HRT will remain at the circuit for one further day of testing before the first race of the season.
| Driver | Car | Best time | Laps | Difference | |
| 1 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes W02 | 1’21.268 | 67 | |
| 2 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari 150° Italia | 1’21.614 | 141 | 0.346 |
| 3 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes W02 | 1’21.788 | 22 | 0.520 |
| 4 | Nick Heidfeld | Renault R31 | 1’22.073 | 67 | 0.805 |
| 5 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth FW33 | 1’22.233 | 89 | 0.965 |
| 6 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari C30 | 1’22.315 | 98 | 1.047 |
| 7 | Jaime Alguersuari | Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR6 | 1’22.675 | 72 | 1.407 |
| 8 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault RB7 | 1’22.933 | 64 | 1.665 |
| 9 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Renault T128 | 1’23.437 | 138 | 2.169 |
| 10 | Paul di Resta | Force India-Mercedes VJM04 | 1’23.653 | 42 | 2.385 |
| 11 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes VJM04 | 1’23.921 | 26 | 2.653 |
| 12 | Pastor Maldonado | Williams-Cosworth FW33 | 1’24.108 | 11 | 2.840 |
| 13 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes MP4-26 | 1’25.837 | 57 | 4.569 |
| 14 | Jerome d’Ambrosio | Virgin-Cosworth MVR-02 | 1’27.3752 | 46 | 6.107 |
2011 F1 testing
- Young Drivers Test Day 3 in pictures
- Vergne completes third day on top in Abu Dhabi
- Young Drivers Test Day 2 in pictures
- Vergne stays quickest on second day of test
- Italian F3 pair complete Ferrari test
- Jean-Eric Vergne leads first day of young drivers test
- 2011 F1 testing diary part four: Barcelona
- McLaren cover least test distance with new car
- Rosberg: Mercedes are “on the up”
- Second Barcelona test day 5 in pictures
Image © Mercedes
Hacky (@hacky) said on 11th March 2011, 16:11
Are there any pictures of the Mercedes before (okay sure ) and after (today) the update where you can see the body changes
Steve said on 11th March 2011, 16:26
Would be very nice to see!
Kenny (@kenny) said on 11th March 2011, 18:22
Schumacher is. or was, the meister of many things, not least sandbagging. Mercedes are in the mix.
alexf1man said on 11th March 2011, 16:12
Personally I don’t think Merc will be in the top 2 but could challenge Renault and maybe McLaren (only if they can sort their unreliable car out).
2Ugandan Discussions said on 11th March 2011, 16:30
Lol!!! alexf1man, if HRT can sort out their problems, they would be in the top 2 too.
Craig said on 11th March 2011, 16:12
Return of the Mach.
BasCB (@bascb) said on 11th March 2011, 16:14
Mercedes ran 1 and 3, seems their updates are doing as predicted by Brawn. I got the impression Red Bull had some problems limiting their running in the morning.
Great that HRT have made it and brought the car out of the garage today. It will probalby do less than half the milage of the Ferraris all year, but still …
alexf1man said on 11th March 2011, 16:16
That’s exluding the likely number of times HRT will get lapped :-0
PJ said on 11th March 2011, 16:16
Ferrari have already done more than a season’s race distance in testing.
gabal (@gabal) said on 11th March 2011, 16:21
I thought Williams will also be running tomorrow.
luigismen said on 11th March 2011, 18:21
They will
Rugel said on 11th March 2011, 16:22
Michael is back!!
Last Pope Eye said on 11th March 2011, 19:17
wow, Schumi the greatest!!!
RIISE (@riise) said on 11th March 2011, 16:28
Come on Schumi, show the grid how to really race!!
Mike said on 11th March 2011, 21:15
I’ll admit a slight pang of giddiness when I read he was on top.
sw6569 (@sw6569) said on 11th March 2011, 16:44
How did Williams manage 85 laps in the morning and only 11 for Maldonado in the afternoon?
Wificats said on 11th March 2011, 20:46
I believe that Maldonado had an engine change in the afternoon, which seems to rather take away from the point of having both drivers running today to avoid the rain tomorrow.
K. Chandra Shekhar said on 11th March 2011, 16:50
Schumi topping the charts was music to ears. I’m a Schumi fan and was dismayed at his retirement in 2006 and always dreamt of him driving for Mclaren Mercedes one day, ’cause am Mercedes fan. Oh! my god my dream is coming true he is racing once again and that too for Mercedes and last but not least I will be seeing him live (not on tv) at the Indian GP. October is sooooooo long.
Icemangrins said on 11th March 2011, 17:08
dude, Schumi was back last year !!
Last Pope Eye said on 11th March 2011, 19:29
she thought it was Ralf.lol,
nakos said on 11th March 2011, 19:47
big lol
K. Chandra Shekhar said on 11th March 2011, 19:46
Wow, what a find!!! Ha Ha, sure he was back last year, but for me watching him live in India will be a first.
Bigbadderboom said on 11th March 2011, 16:50
Perhaps the extended wait will fall into the hands of Mercedes. Getting very nervous for McLaren now though, I’d have thought that if they were sand bagging (Which I doubt but others here have suggested), they would have shown some kind of competitive pace. I have a sinking feeling I’m going to be a British F1 fan with little to cheer on this year, this may be a year for the German Fans!!!
electrolite (@electrolite) said on 11th March 2011, 17:21
Another one :P
Lemon (@lemon) said on 11th March 2011, 17:56
You’re forgetting that Red Bull are British!!!!!!
Dizzy-A (@david-a) said on 11th March 2011, 17:58
I think Red Bull may be Austrian.
Lemon (@lemon) said on 11th March 2011, 18:03
Austrian owner, but that don’t mean nothing he doesn’t do any thing, it’s based in England and most of the people working for them are British.
Lemon (@lemon) said on 11th March 2011, 18:10
It’s just like if I bought FC Barcelona and then called them an english team, it just wouldn’t make sense.
Dizzy-A (@david-a) said on 11th March 2011, 18:20
Austrian owner, Austrian FIA license, Austrian constructor. So you’re right, it doesn’t “mean nothing”.
Lemon (@lemon) said on 11th March 2011, 18:28
Thats just my opinion, If I was a British engineer who had worked hard to make a championship winning car I would be very annoyed that Austria seem to be taking the winnings. When they hadn’t really done anything towards it, orther than some greedy, dirty rich owner!.
HxCas said on 11th March 2011, 22:05
Thats kind of like saying that an Australian soccer team should be considered african because the primary defense coach is from Ghana
Mike said on 12th March 2011, 4:03
Obviously though F1 is a bit different from other sports. I mean, the reason the teams build their cars in Britain is because that’s where the infrastructure, personnel and expertise exists.
Is Force India British as well?
Morgan C said on 12th March 2011, 7:34
“than some greedy, dirty rich owner!.”
Are you in energy drink business as well? ;)
nakos said on 11th March 2011, 19:48
In that case Merc are British too.
Cole (@cole) said on 11th March 2011, 20:10
and williams, and force india, renault….
ZF1 (@zf1) said on 11th March 2011, 23:21
Dont forget Team Lotus and Virgin are british too ;)
Sean Evans said on 12th March 2011, 10:46
Red bull are a austrian team.
Lemon (@lemon) said on 12th March 2011, 17:48
To be honest yes I’d say force india are indeed, after all they are just the Jordan team with a different name!
Srini (@) said on 11th March 2011, 16:56
What’s up with McLaren this year.. too many troubles in testing.
Button did 57 laps compared to Schumacher’s 67 and still managed only 13th spot? WTH?
nemo87 (@nemo87) said on 11th March 2011, 16:57
..shark fin?
Srini (@) said on 11th March 2011, 16:59
Nice catch, probably testing on last year’s car?
nemo87 (@nemo87) said on 11th March 2011, 17:00
thats why im so confused.. it has the infinity logos on it?
thats if it is last years car..?
eniQma said on 11th March 2011, 17:19
hmm number 1 car? confusing…
Calum said on 11th March 2011, 23:22
As long as that Sharkfin is NOT connected to the wing it’s legal – even a one mm gap is still legal.
Burnout said on 11th March 2011, 17:12
That can’t be right, unless they’re using it to compare with last year’s aero package. There’s no way for the rear wing to move given the configuration in that picture.
nemo87 (@nemo87) said on 11th March 2011, 17:20
properly thrown me that has..?
ZF1 said on 11th March 2011, 18:33
From the look of the monocoque it seems like its last years car with this years car number and sponsors. now the question is why did they bring last years car?
geo132 (@geo132) said on 11th March 2011, 18:46
Maybe for practicing pit stops?
ZF1 said on 11th March 2011, 19:35
possibly!
nemo87 (@nemo87) said on 13th March 2011, 17:18
but in tha picture you can see the red bull branded pole thingys that feed the wheel nut guns up and over the pit box..
nemo87 (@nemo87) said on 11th March 2011, 19:54
but that still doesn’t make sense..? surely they would want to practice pit stops with the NEW car. also aren’t teams only allowed to bring one car to testing..?
fullthrottle said on 11th March 2011, 20:07
i’m intrigued with all this thing about the last year car. Hope someone knowledgeable give us some explanation.
Gusto said on 11th March 2011, 20:54
Perhaps there using last years car to measure tyre degradation? Last years car is a known qauntity regarding tyres, seeing how it degrades this years tyres might give them a small amount of data. Or perhaps it`s a piece of Photoshop shenanigans.
tomforpresident said on 11th March 2011, 20:54
lots of teams bring old cars for corporate reasons, people can have their picture taken and do pretend pitstops etc.
in one of yesterdays (i think) pictures there was an old honda painted up to look like this years mercedes for the same thing.
nemo87 (@nemo87) said on 12th March 2011, 1:20
but its parked right infront of their garage mid-testing..? if it was just a demo/dummy car then why have it in the way..?
tomforpresident said on 12th March 2011, 11:06
it’s in front of A garage, there’s a lot of garages down in the pits.
nemo87 (@nemo87) said on 13th March 2011, 17:19
but in tha picture you can see the red bull branded pole thingys that feed the wheel nut guns up and over the pit box..?
dim said on 11th March 2011, 17:01
It’s good to see Mercedes on top with the new updates, and thanks God i’m seeing (finally) a decent 2011 front wing, but today they did only short runs, so we have to see tommorow if they do some long runs, i’m hoping for no rain.
Burnout said on 11th March 2011, 17:14
Any idea how many laps Schumacher did in the stint with the fastest lap? For Mercedes’ sake I hope it wasn’t a qualifying simulation.
AlexT (@alext) said on 11th March 2011, 17:37
quali simuulation, 1 fast lap then pitted
Rainman (@rainman) said on 11th March 2011, 18:06
Nope he posted his 1.21.249 on a 7 lap run of his last stint…
Things really looking good for Schumi….:)
Last Pope Eye said on 11th March 2011, 19:36
Yes MSC is back. Alonso is right when he was asked who he feared most of all drivers line-up this year. Then he answered Schumi in the right car! So he knew what is the legend’s capability.
AlexT (@alext) said on 11th March 2011, 21:37
The 1.21.268 posted was done on a in and out lap as far as I know. But nevermind that, Schumi indeed looks good
Abhi Shah said on 11th March 2011, 17:21
@Keith
I haven’t seen much written about Virgin and d’Ambrosio. What’s going on there? They’ve been consistently slow. Is the Virgin really that bad? Or is d’Ambrosio not cutting the…custard? (sorry, couldn’t help myself). I hope the car is not a complete dud…Glock deserves a decent drive.
I would love to hear your thoughts.