Scuderia Ferrari brought an end to their testing programme at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, having racked up more laps than any other team, filling the Italian’s with plenty of confidence ahead of the Official Pre-Season Test.
It was Charles Leclerc who was at the wheel for the morning session on the final day, the Monegasque driver completed 44 laps, taking his three day total to an impressive 203. In the afternoon it was Carlos Sainz Jr at the helm of the F1-75, on what was an artificially watered Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. This gave all teams the chance to try both the Intermediate and Wet Pirelli compounds, giving the engineers plenty of data to analyse.
Sainz completed an impressive 92 laps, taking his three day total to 236. Combined, the Ferrari drivers completed 439 laps, the most racked up by any team in the paddock across the three days. Ferrari have clearly designed not only a reliable car but a fast one too, the F1-75 was consistently towards the front of the timing sheets, even though the order is somewhat irrelevant at testing.
The team will now head back to Maranello, giving themselves plenty of time to look over everything they’ve done across the three days ahead of the final test in Bahrain.
Laurent Mekies, Ferrari Racing Director, is extremely pleased with how things went in Spain, he recognises however that the work has only just begun in what is an exceptionally long season for Formula 1.
“Overall, this has been a solid test session for us as we completed many laps. We got through most of our programme, which was based around three key elements: firstly to get an initial read on reliability, hence our primary focus on the number of laps completed; secondly to map several parameters of our car, from aero performance to tyre performance, to vehicle dynamics performance. We have a long list of scans to work through and we got through a fair number of them over these three days.
“Last but not least, it was important to give our drivers sufficient laps to familiarise themselves with what is a completely new car. It calls for a different driving style and a different approach to the various racing conditions. We did this with both drivers, sharing the workload across the three days. It was also good for the race team to be back at the track. For them, it was a useful warm-up before what will be a long and intense season, getting used to procedures such as the pit stops and, for the various crews that make up the team, to all be back working together again and interacting well with our drivers.
“We still have a lot of work ahead of us and we can expect an intense fight, so everyone has many items on their job list now. Our thanks must go to everyone back at the factory, who have worked so hard over the past few months to ensure we arrived at the race track well prepared. It’s only the first step of a long year, when we intend to push very hard, working all together.“