Lotus GP ended preseason testing in Barcelona today in the best possible way as Kimi Raikkonen topped the timesheets for the Enstone-based team. Kimi's fastest time of 1m22.030s set in this morning's session was enough for the Finn to stay top for the rest of the day. Kimi completed a comprehensive 65 lap race simulation during which time he used four sets of Pirelli's 2012 spec rubber. three sets of the soft compound and one set of the more durable hard tyre. During this period Kimi set consistent times and was only ever 1.3 seconds slower then his fastest time. This bods very well for the start of the season in Melbourne in two week's time as Lotus have performed extremely well during preseason testing and in my opinion have looked to be the most consistently quick team of the Winter testing period.
Not only did Kimi set the fastest time of the day, he also set the fastest time of the entire test programme in Barcelona over the last two week's despite the fact that Lotus did not run at all during the first week of testing in Barcelona. The team will also be delighted with the fact that Kimi was able to complete the most number of lap's today as the Iceman completed a staggering 121 lap's, racking up the mileage on the E20.
Elsewhere Fernando Alonso completed Ferrari's test programme in 2nd place 0.220s behind Raikkonen. There were two major surprises from today's test, the first was that reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel driving the 'new' RedBull RB8 was at the bottom of the timesheet's in 11th place following a gearbox problem and an off track moment in which he damaged the front wing on the RedBull. The German only managed to complete 23 lap's of the Circuit De Catalunya.
RedBull have a race against time now to sort out their car before their car's are dispatched to Melbourne later this week.
The second surprise of the day was that the Williams of Bruno Senna finished the day in 3rd place just 0.226s behind Raikkonen. Now I know not to read too much into the preason testing times as all the team's are testing different things however I believe that this season could be an extremely close season among the top team's. It's all to play for a the first race of the season in Melbourne which is just two week's away, infact by this time two week's we will know who the winner of the first race was.
I have also been very surprised by McLaren's pace during preseason testing. The team have been up and down the timesheets throughout but have proven to a built what appears to be an extremely reliable car. Lewis Hamilton finished preseason testing in 6th place today.
I also believe that the Caterham team are going to be a big surpirse this year, I reckon they will be regularly challenging for points this season as the team have been performing very well in preseason testing. Their new signing Vitaly Petrov finished today in 7th place ahead of the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher.
So in conclusion, preseason testing has shown many surprises with many team's showing very strong form so we will have to wait and see who is the fastest team in Melbourne, one thing is for certain I firmly believe that RedBull Racing's two year dominance of the sport may be challenged in 2012!!
No comments:
Post a Comment