Driver:
Robert Kubica (AM), Lance Stroll (PM)
Chassis / Engine: FW41-01 / Mercedes-AMG F1 M09 EQ Power+
Location: Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, 4.655 km
Weather: Warm and dry Temperatures (min-max): Air 6-15ºC / Track 14-30ºC
The third day of testing for the Williams Martini team would see Robert
Kubica make his first appearance running in the morning session. Lance
Stroll would run in the afternoon. Robert would complete the usual
installation lap and on his firs run, using soft tyres, he would set a
1m:21.790 completing nine laps in the process. His next run would again see
the soft tyre in use and he would improve his lap time with a 1nm:20.689.
This would would see Robert complete ten laps. As the clouds started to
increase over the circuit Robert would return to a further run staying on
the soft tyres.
Robert would set a new personal best with a 1m:20.674 as he continued to lap
on the soft tyre. Again it would be a short run seeing him now having
completed twenty seven laps. His next run would see him improve his time
with a 1m:20.202 continuing on the soft tyre. He would follow this with a
1m:20.119. He would pit and return this time on the supersoft tyre and would
improve his time with a 1m:19.922 followed by a 1m:19.917 and then a
1m:19.629. Having completed a total of fifty nine laps Robert would pit
returning to the soft tyre for another run. By the time the lunch time break
came along Robert had completed seventy three laps.
The afternoon session would get underway with Lance Stroll using soft tyres
for his first run. As he completed more laps he was able to improve with a
1m:20.422. Lance would pit after a short seven lap run. Lance would return
for another short run again on the soft tyre. He would pit again after
completing a total of fourteen laps. Lance did have one moment where his car
slowed with what sounded like a lack of drive but he was able to continue
possibly explaining why he pitted. Lance was able to return to the track
still running on the soft tyre and was able to see a small improvement with
a 1m:20.276 but he would pit and switch to the supersoft tyre. He would not
improve his time and pit again.
The rest of the
afternoon would see Lance complete longer runs as well as having to cope
with red flags. He would have a run on the ultrasoft tyres but would fail to
improve on his first lap and would only just move ahead of his previous
quickest time with a 1m:20.262. With the end of the session Lance would have
completed sixty five laps.
Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: Today we had Robert in the
morning and Lance in the afternoon and our focus was to work with the
different tyre compounds, something we haven’t done so far in this winter
testing. We had good reliability all day, and some reasonably good running
with Robert in the morning, and actually his first chance to really drive
the car in decent conditions. So, I’m sure with more time, he could have
improved even further, but some good results and some good information from
Robert. The afternoon started well with Lance but unfortunately, we lost our
way with the set-up and didn’t find any lap time with the softer compounds,
but actually by the end of the day, we discovered some important directions
and we can work further with this tomorrow.
Robert Kubica: This morning it was my second time in the car. The
conditions were better than last week with higher temperatures, although in
the morning it was still quite cold. I did another half day to get some more
running and complete more specific tests on the car in order to get more
data. We tried a softer compound, going from the soft to supersoft, just to
get the basic information that we have on the tyre. Now we have to go
through the data and try to analyse everything.
Lance Stroll: I feel good, we have got kilometres on the car so I am
looking forward to heading to Australia. You have just got to keep chipping
away at it and that is the key for now, as there is still a lot to work on,
but everyone is in the same boat. We really don't know where we stand right
now and will have to see in Melbourne. There is not much you can see from
the timesheets, as everyone is running different fuel levels and doing lots
of different things. The midfield will most probably be closer than last
year because of the developments by everyone. This week we did more running
and it was better weather, so we had much better conditions. The car still
needs some work on it to understand the balance, tyres and all that, but we
shall see.
The FW41 returns to the track tomorrow for the final day of pre-season
testing, with Sergey driving in the morning session, before handing over to
Lance in the afternoon. |