Alonso ends Jerez test quickest for Ferrari
2012 F1 testing
Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, Jerez, 2012
Fernando Alonso was quickest on the final day of testing at Jerez.
His lap of 1’18.877 served as a timely response to questions over the performance of the Ferrari F2012.
Alonso set the lap early in the running before spending much of the day conducting aerodynamic tests in the new Ferrari.
Behind him the times were close – Jean-Eric Vergne, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Kamui Kobayashi all lapped within two-tenths of a second of each other.
The world champion had a quiet start to the day as the team had to fix an electrical fault on the RB8.
Another driver to hit trouble was Bruno Senna, who caused two red flags when his Williams stopped on track. Nonetheless Senna completed another busy programme, logging 124 laps in his FW34, one fewer than he did yesterday.
Kamui Kobayashi lost a significant amount of time after an hydraulic leak in his Sauber C31 caused him to stop on the track. But was able to return to the circuit before the end of the session.
Having missed out on yesterday’s running, Nico Hulkenberg had his first taste of the Force India VJM05.
Jarno Trulli got behind the wheel of the Caterham CT01 for the first time. Having struggled with the power steering in last year’s car, he quickly reported back that the new model seemed to be an improvement in that area. However he was two seconds off the best time of the next-slowest car.
The next test will begin on 21st February at the Circuit de Catalunya.
Jerez test times
| Driver | Car | Best time | Laps | Difference | |
| 1 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari F2012 | 1’18.877 | 39 | |
| 2 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR7 | 1’19.597 | 80 | 0.720 |
| 3 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault RB8 | 1’19.606 | 49 | 0.729 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes MP4-27 | 1’19.640 | 86 | 0.763 |
| 5 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Renault E20 | 1’19.729 | 95 | 0.852 |
| 6 | Kamui Kobayashi | Sauber-Ferrari C31 | 1’19.834 | 76 | 0.957 |
| 7 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India-Mercedes VJM05 | 1’19.977 | 90 | 1.100 |
| 8 | Bruno Senna | Williams-Renault FW34 | 1’20.132 | 124 | 1.255 |
| 9 | Jarno Trulli | Caterham-Renault CT01 | 1’22.198 | 117 | 3.321 |
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Image © Ferrari spa/Ercole Colombo
BasCB (@bascb) said on 10th February 2012, 16:08
Do we have an overview of how many laps teams did manage?
Seems there are quite some teams with bigger problems so far. And there’s Mercedes running the old car off course.
TimG (@timg) said on 10th February 2012, 16:13
Alonso 38
Vergne 80
Vettel 50
Hamilton 86
Grosjean 95
Koybayashi 76
Hulkenberg 90
Senna 125
Trulli 117
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 10th February 2012, 16:14
The table has been updated with the (correct) lap counts.
Fixy (@fixy) said on 10th February 2012, 16:16
Why did Alonso complete so few laps?
N said on 10th February 2012, 16:18
Apparantly they had electrical problems
Eggry (@eggry) said on 10th February 2012, 16:23
According to Autosport, they had hydraulic problem.
gwenouille (@gwenouille) said on 10th February 2012, 16:35
According to Eggry and N, they had hydro-electrical problems.
FLIG said on 11th February 2012, 12:03
excellent.
AmirAnuar (@amiranuar) said on 10th February 2012, 16:22
could you do and article on which tire they are using for their fastest lap during the test session
Nick.UK (@nick-uk) said on 10th February 2012, 23:45
Testing really doesn’t give accurate late time information so I wouldn’t worry about this at all.
Osvaldas31 (@osvaldas31) said on 10th February 2012, 16:13
Well, it’s only 7 tenths from SRT. It’s not very quick and I think Ferrari are facing same problems as Mclaren last year, when they tried radical design path.
Eggry (@eggry) said on 10th February 2012, 16:18
Well at least it has no reliablity problem except one hydraulic failure while Mclaren had been suffered from massive exhaust failure. Of course once reliability problem solved, Mclaren became front runner but we don’t know how exactly F2012 is fast yet.
f1andy83 said on 10th February 2012, 17:04
Ferrari was on soft tyres, so that time compared to the Lotus is worse than it seems. Lotus I think was set on medium tyres.
JCRR said on 10th February 2012, 23:33
or different tyres and different fuel loads,meh!
f1andy83 said on 10th February 2012, 17:06
Romain Grosjean-Lotus-1’18.419-Medium Tyres
Fernando Alonso-Ferrari-1’18.877-Soft Tyres
yr said on 10th February 2012, 17:56
apparently the tyre performance are much closer between the compounds this year
Roger said on 10th February 2012, 19:23
Actually, as far as I know, Pirelli was requested by FIA to produce a even more different performance between 2 different compounds. e.g. medium/soft.
Eggry (@eggry) said on 11th February 2012, 1:01
Nico said opposite things. He said compounds are much closer than last year.
babis1980 (@babis1980) said on 11th February 2012, 11:45
Your information sir are incorrect. For 2012 Pirelli will provide compounds with better analogy for lap time and life circle. Exactly the opposite from what you are saying.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner) said on 10th February 2012, 21:19
@osvaldas31 There’s nothing radical about the F2012 as far as the rest of the field goes. Going to pull-rod suspension is about thi biggest departure I think.
Fixy (@fixy) said on 10th February 2012, 16:15
Wait, why are Mercedes and HRT not listed? Did they not compete today?
Pamphlet (@pamphlet) said on 10th February 2012, 16:19
That is correct.
Mike (@mike) said on 10th February 2012, 16:21
Nope, HRT won’t run there car until the third (and final) test. Mercedes will be running with their new car at the next test.
Fixy (@fixy) said on 10th February 2012, 16:50
But they used their 2011 cars in the past three days. Didn’t they do the same today?
Eggry (@eggry) said on 10th February 2012, 16:52
No, they didn’t run a lap at all. I can’t understand either but I guess they think they’ve done all jobs they planned.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner) said on 10th February 2012, 21:21
@fixy Mercedes were just evaluating tyres. HRT, I don’t know. I doubt even HRT knew what they were doing.
That’s harsh.
Solo (@solo) said on 11th February 2012, 0:27
What they were doing is running and setting up a car so Pedro can feel the car and get a little racing and the team can work together because they have a lot of new guys since their departure with Kolles.
Basically people learning to work together.
Fixy (@fixy) said on 11th February 2012, 11:27
Thanks @andrewtanner and @eggry, that was what I was wondering. Surely an extra day of testing can’t hurt that much?
Eggry (@eggry) said on 10th February 2012, 16:15
We will see what would happen in Barcelona…
Pamphlet (@pamphlet) said on 10th February 2012, 16:18
Toro Rosso seemed pretty impressive for the entire testing period if you ask me.
Nick.UK (@nick-uk) said on 10th February 2012, 23:48
Don’t forget the Caterham! Reliable car so far, their only issue was with the starter too, not the car :)
Christopher (@twiinzspeed) said on 10th February 2012, 16:18
Although times mean absolutely zilch during testing, I am glad to see the Ferrari somewhere other than the bottom half of the order. At first I was more concerned that they were doing so few laps, but this must be part of their method of learning the set up parameters of the new chasis. Hopefully this info will be processed during the coming break and they will be able to log alot more miles in Spain. There are lots of positives with several teams this week. STR and Lotus have done some consistent runs, while Catterham have posted alot of miles compared to years past. Lastly, I hope Mercedes new car is as promising as people guess it might be.
zim 1 said on 10th February 2012, 16:19
seems like ferrari just did a fast lap to shut the media up, kinda like what mclaren did last year when reporters started speculating how competitive the car was.
my money is on 2 way tie between Mclaren and RBR. followed by ferrari and Renault. ..
F1_Dave said on 10th February 2012, 16:26
Don’t think that was the case.
They had some new bits flown over for today & from watching the car round the track it looked a lot better today as a result. Alonso really seemed to be able to push & the car generally looked very well balanced.
His fast lap was also set in the middle of a fairly long run of about 15 laps on the medium compound so it wasn’t a case of low fuel/soft tyres.
Buzz in the paddock is all about the Lotus, Most seem to genuinely think that car is something very special.
N said on 10th February 2012, 16:32
The Lotus/Renault of last year was good at the start of the year, and for the first few races, then they fell back as others out developed them.
Randy (@randy) said on 10th February 2012, 16:33
No he didn’t. It was 3rd lap of 9, his longest stint of the day.
Where do you get your tyre information by the way? Couldn’t find it.
F1_Dave said on 10th February 2012, 16:41
By been at the track ;)
Wasn’t that they were outdeveloped, Was more because there forward facing exhaust concept limited what they could do.
While others worked on/improved there blown diffusers, Renault were limited by the forward facing concept. They tried to go to a rear facing system but coudn’t get the packaging sorted out due to everything been designed around the forward facing system.
Nick.UK (@nick-uk) said on 11th February 2012, 0:14
This makes massive sense now lol. I wondered how a car could start so well and end so badly. Talk about missing the obvious haha.
truep1 (@truep1) said on 10th February 2012, 21:06
According to Scuderia Ferrari via Twitter:
“Another run completed on Soft Pirelli tyres. Fernando improved his best time up to 1.18.877.”
HoHum (@hohum) said on 11th February 2012, 2:57
If they were testing aero-widgets they would have wanted an idea of how fast the new base package was so as to be able to determine what was an improvement and what was a detriment.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 10th February 2012, 16:22
Combined times and lap counts for all drivers and teams:
Lotus quickest of 2012 cars at Jerez
f1andy83 said on 10th February 2012, 17:29
Keith do you know which tyres each fast lap used and on what lap?
Randy (@randy) said on 10th February 2012, 16:29
If it adds anything to the times, i can tell you that Alonso posted his time in 1st lap of 6 lap stint, so he made the time having 5 more laps of fuel on board at least.
Compare that to Hamilton’s best stint (not the fastest lap of the day though) – 1:19.8 on the first lap of 13 lap stint, ended by the red flag. So at least 12 laps worth of fuel in the tank as he posted it.
Vettel did his best 1:19.6 in 8-lap stint.
Interestingly, Senna in Williams posted 1:20.1 (not far off) in another 13-lap stint, so he also had at least 12 laps left doing a flying lap.
I know that this doesn’t mean anything, but there’s nothing better to do right now (in F1 world anyway), so we may as well continue to not draw conclusions from those times.
Aldoid said on 10th February 2012, 16:40
That’s very interesting indeed. Still can’t read too much into the lap times yet, but I get the feeling that Lotus, RBR, Force India, STR & McLaren are in pretty good shape. Based on where they are relative to each other, & the comments coming out of those three teams, they seem quietly confident that they’re heading in the right direction at least. Ferrari seems to have caught up, but again I know these times tell us nothing definitive. I dare not speculate too much, but it’s been a very interesting test.
Eggry (@eggry) said on 10th February 2012, 16:41
Interesting info though it just tells me times are almost useless but it’s useful.
STSCM (@stscm) said on 10th February 2012, 16:37
Curious if theres any cockpit views, the Ferrari last year always seemed a handful while RB was smooth, has the Ferrari smoothed itself out or did FA have to wrestle it to that position?
StefMeister (@stefmeister) said on 10th February 2012, 16:44
Found this site which has a list of all the laps done throughout the day:
http://f1tests.co.cc/2012.php
Aldoid said on 10th February 2012, 16:53
Ferrari might have the fastest lap time, but it doesn’t look very promising for them in the way of consistency. Quick laps not withstanding, Red Bull & Mclaren are looking pretty good on consistency so far this week. Senna managed a pretty decent stint today though… glad to see the Williams looking good so far.
Teteto said on 10th February 2012, 20:20
How do you know that? The Ferrari only did 39 laps compared to the 80+ laps done by red bull and mclaren. Also based on the graphic it seems that Alonso made more las than the rb and mcca when doing the fastest laPs.
Terrone said on 10th February 2012, 16:48
Who did the best long run.
Terrone said on 10th February 2012, 16:48
Who did the best long run.
Younger Hamii (@younger-hamii) said on 10th February 2012, 16:57
If the difference between Lewis & Seb is the amount that an RB gets Pole by come Australia, I’m going to flip!!!
So Close!!!
ducatiusa (@ducatiusa) said on 10th February 2012, 21:03
Alonso didn’t push at all and they are working on “understanding” the car which is totally new to them. Those test didn’t tell anything regarding cars performances, the BIG 3 are definitely “hiding” the real performances so…..in few weeks we will know.I BET ON FERRARI POLE IN AUSTRALIA…..
But I’m Italian so i guess it doesn’t really count :)