Lotus fastest again as Jerez test ends

2013 F1 season

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The first test session of 2013 concluded with Kimi Raikkonen fastest for Lotus.

But his 1’18.148 lap fell short of the best time set by Felipe Massa yesterday.

Sebastian Vettel led the running early on the day, making a series of short runs in the Red Bull. Between each stint the team were waiting with barriers to shield the RB9 from onlookers as it arrived and more were pulled around the RB9 when it came to a stop.

Pedro de la Rosa’s first appearance as a Ferrari test driver got off to a bad start as he stopped with a fire on his second lap.

The session was red flagged while his car was recovered, and several hours passed before it reappeared.

Fortunately for Ferrari the final day’s running was extended by half an hour following a further red flag period. The session was stopped for almost an hour after a hole appeared next to the kerb between turns nine and ten. It had to be patched up with concrete before running could resume.

Vettel’s quickest time was beaten in the afternoon by Jules Bianchi using a set of soft tyres. The team originally planned to give Bianchi the full day in the car, but sent Di Resta out with two hours to go. His run in the car yesterday was curtailed by an exhaust fault.

Raikkonen took the best time off Bianchi with two hours to go by less than three-hundredths of a second. Lotus began the day continuing their comparison of different exhaust configurations.

Mercedes continued to make up for lost time and Lewis Hamilton emulated Nico Rosberg’s efforts yesterday by covering more than two Grand Prix distances. Esteban Gutierrez did likewise in the Sauber.

DriverCarBest timeLapsDifference
1Kimi RaikkonenLotus-Renault E211’18.14883
2Jules BianchiForce India-Mercedes VJM061’18.175560.027
3Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault RB91’18.565960.417
4Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari C321’18.6691420.521
5Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Ferrari STR81’18.760920.612
6Lewis HamiltonMercedes W041’18.9051450.757
7Sergio PerezMcLaren-Mercedes MP4-281’18.944980.796
8Valtteri BottasWilliams-Renault FW341’19.851921.703
9Pedro de la RosaFerrari F1381’20.316512.168
10Charles PicCaterham-Renault CT031’21.1051092.957
11Luiz RaziaMarussia-Cosworth MR021’21.226823.078
12Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes VJM061’23.435495.287

2013 F1 season


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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...

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45 comments on “Lotus fastest again as Jerez test ends”

  1. Bianchi set that lap with 1 lap fuel…pit immediately after the flyer.

    Kimi at least had 4 laps fuel onboards

    Looking good for Lotus, hope they can sustain the development when 2014 is kicking around the corner.

    1. Bianchi pitted after 3 laps… he did 1:18s then 1:21s and then 1:19s before pitting.

      i’m sure Kimi was carrying much more fuel than Bianchi

    2. Looks like gloryruns for Force India then…
      In case they might be needing some extra sponsorship?

      1. I’d say it was more along the lines of a glory run for Bianchi, and even then it’d only be because of the pressure on him to demonstrate that he is F1 material. And I don’t think you can hold that against him, or the team.

    3. hey guys, CAUTION!!!
      KIMI did only 3 consecutive laps on soft, 1:18:148, 1:19:804, 1:21:000, & pitted for mediums
      watch out for tyre deg!!!.
      there was no mention of this amount of deg.

      1. The track surface at Jerez is much more abrasive than any other track on the calendar, so I wouldn’t worry about tyres going off that quickly.

  2. Well, extremely happy that merc had a safe day. Lotus seem to have a fast car this year . I know that even last year they were fastest in each test and these times do not mean much , but do they always tend to make lesser fuel runs , or does the cold suit the car . Red bull seem to be sandbagging big time . I think the Sauber will be more formidable if there is a tyre lottery like last time ….and now Esteban having run so many laps might just be set. Who knows ? Anything can happen .can’t wait for melbourne

  3. Which tyres did Kimi use?

  4. So did vettel do that time on hards?

    1. yeah. but they suffer a lot on soft compound.

      weird, can never know much from these lap time.

  5. Summary: ‘fire and a hole’

  6. As always Tyres and Fuel loads make the fastest times hard to compare at a glance and read who is fastest, it would appear that there are a few teams with comparable cars which bodes well for a competitive season ahead, I am more pleased to see solid running on their new car for Marussia, while the times are not there yet, getting to grips with Kers and their mechanical set up now can only help them vs the situation of the last few seasons of arriving in Australia with it all to do, if they are in a position when come the first race they are beginning to refine their aero package and are able to build on a solid mechanical base then i think they can have a good season and close that gap to the cars in front, are they going to get a point probably not, the midfield is looking just as close as ever, but i think the % laptimes should close up and they will be able to develop race set up in free practice and not have to be doing basic thier testing in the public glare like normal.

  7. Was that a James Hunt edition of Kimi’s helmet?

    1. Thats his new helmet for this year

  8. Looks like another great day for Lotus. They seem to have some good pace this year and I will be surprised if they don’t seriously crack the top 3 this year. Merc have also had two solid days, over 140 laps two days running is pretty solid, as are their times. Yesterday, Rosberg set his fastest lap at the start of a 12 – 15 lap run ( I can’t remember the exact number) Today Hamilton set his on only a five lap run.. BUT I think his run could have been interrupted by a red flag ? Still seems that merc haven’t done a serious quali run yet, which gives me some faith in their speed. Also Hamiltons laps today seemed more balanced than Rosbergs yesterday. I’m not saying Rosberg can’t drive as it was probably the strategy from the team, but it’s nice to see the car do a 10 lap run where the final lap was only 0.2 slower than the first, especially on a track which kills the tyres.

    At the next test we will be able to compare more with last year’s actual GP times from quali and practice, the rules have been pretty stable so we should be able to see the difference between a flat out run and full fuel… Can’t wait :)

  9. I am very surprised that Lotus didn’t try their ‘device’ this test: it is generally believed that they are planning to run it sometime during the tests, so why wait for it? One possible explanation is that they felt they didn’t understood the E21 well enough to try a system as complicated as the DRD. Mercedes meanwhile did test a drag reducting device: they have adopted Lotus’s design from last year and I’m very excited that there are at least two (sub-top) teams who are willing to try this innovative aerodynamic device. Following on from that, I hope that it will pay off for them in the end!

    1. @andae23 – I’m not too surprised by it. It’s not often that teams start testing things like that on the first test. It’s usually for reliability, tyres and simply understanding the car so that you have a base in which to compare the two. I expect we’ll see it in the latter half of the second test at Barcelona.

      1. @jamiefranklinf1 I would say that an aerodynamic device as complicated as the DRD would require some time to understand. I didn’t expect Lotus to run it for the entire test, but maybe a bit like what Mercedes did: a few runs, gather some preliminary data. But well, Lotus probably knows what they’re doing ;)

  10. I’ve been putting video’s from Sky’s testing coverage up on my Dailymotion channel:
    http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x2gt9u_Stefmeister2008_2013-testing/1#video=xxcx57

    1. @stefmeister OMG, thank you very very very much! :)

  11. I think the use of privacy barriers around Vettels car are proof that the car at the 13 launch and the publicity photos released are not the same as the “real” race car, but the colour scheme was accurate.

    1. Remind me to remind you of this next January!

  12. So far it looks as if no one team is having extreme trouble with their car (although Williams might have a bit next test week with their new car). It seems Mercedes still suffer a bit of headaches with cooling though.

    I guess we will see more of the car performance in the test days that are to come. So far Massa can have a nice feeling of being outright quickest, Kimi can be confident in his car and Marussia and Caterham can say that they did a lot of testing to get their drivers used to the car and team.

  13. Anyone else noticed the “#ImSexyAndIKnowIt” on Kimi’s car… I wonder if he requested it be put on…

    1. Good God not on the car too. The twitter hash tag was bad enough.

      1. i knew I wasnt the only one who thinks it’s really bad

        1. It’s a bit embarrassing. I don’t know who updates Lotus’ social media accounts, but they seriously need to replace him. The use of dumb hashtags on race weekends is just not funny and neither is their constant moaning about ice cream and repeating the same quote over and over and over again… we get it now, Raikkonen wants to be left alone. Now stop milking it, we don’t want t-shirts or mugs with that quote on it.

          1. @roald I’m a Team Enstone fan, but I unfollowed their twitter account for those very reasons. Those hashtags are grossly irritating. :/

          2. @spud, I did the same last year. Te hashtags are just embarrassing.

          3. @us_peter Embarrassing, cringeworthy, irksome, repetitive. All good words to describe their twitter hashtags! :P

    2. @nick-uk It’s on Grosjean’s car as well.

  14. Right a couple of things, Kimis helmet looks like a previous grosjean one and Grosjeans looks like a previous Kimi one! Then there is the case of the yellow helmeted Mercedes drivers..On top of that the Toro Rosso guys run almost identical helmets as well. I’m already hearing the commentry mistakes.

    1. Tell me about it! Was watching the Spa Race Edit from last year and STILL can’t tell which Toro Rosso overtaking Rosberg at the end is which lol. I suppose the commentary would have timing, but nonetheless still hard lol

    2. this year must be a record for yellow skid lids! Lewis, Nico, Perez (neon), Messa and Razia. Although i must admit, i really hate the new Perez design.

  15. Did I just see Keith on Ted’s Notebook on SkyF1?
    Hope you’ve learnt a lot at the test Keith. Will you be writing a test summary/reflection?

    1. Yes he hustles past Kravitz at 9:20 in

    2. That’s in the Sky site clip. He’s at 10:05 in the @stefmeister version.

  16. hey guys, CAUTION!!!
    KIMI did only 3 consecutive laps on soft, 1:18:148, 1:19:804, 1:21:000, & pitted for mediums
    watch out for tyre deg!!!.
    there was no mention of this amount of deg.

  17. So,
    When Lotus go quickest, they’ve got a great car.
    When Force India go quickest, they’re gunning for glory.
    When Red Bull are not too close to the front, they’re ‘sandbagging’.
    When others are not too close to the front, they’re struggling.
    Why there is such a trend of feeling that Red Bull is always teabagging sandbagging, and the other above points, I do not know.

    1. Ah finally!! Someone whom i also agree with!! I read a lot comments in various sites that Jules went fastest in FI jus to attract sponsors or it was jus to make headlines. How exactly will sponsors be attracted to teams finishin first in testing conditions. 2 years ago Williams were fastest for few days durin testin. I didnt hear of any new sponsors. But if at all there were any, i dont think that they benefited with the 5 odd that they scored. Its sad the FI dont get the credit they deserve like the mid field teams like Sauber, Torro Rosso and Williams to certain extent..

      1. FI did get lot of hype last year for VJM05 while testing, many thought they could be the top five team in 2012… VJM05 got many praises from everywhere before Melbourne. But it was Sauber who stole the show when the season began. Hulk almost won the Brazil GP and that shows they have potential to get odd podiums… can they do a better job with VJM06? let’s wait and see.

  18. i feel McLaren are on top, followed by Red Bull, Ferrari, Lotus, Mercedes, Force India, STR, Sauber…
    Williams are yet to show their new car and i feel both the new teams are still a bit far from the midfield.
    More clarity will emerge after the second Barcelona test.

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