Red Bull Barcelona testing - Day 1 report

After a week of analysis following the first test of 2012, it was back to track action for Red Bull Racing in Barcelona today. After 79 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya, Sebastian Vettel emerged with the day's quickest time, recording a 1:23.265 in the latter stages of the afternoon.

Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: xpb.cc

Sebastian said: "It's clear that the cars have less grip than last year, but we try to come back from that slowly. It's difficult to judge where we are compared with the others right now. It's all based on feeling and the feeling I have inside the car at the moment is fine. I think we had a good day today, with no trouble. We had a long lunch break when we made some changes, but not because anything broke down. All in all, it was a good day."

Head of Race Engineering Ian Morgan said that the changes over lunch had lost the team some time, but that the day's work had gone according to plan. "We got through most of what we wanted today," he said. "We had a longer than usual break for lunch, in order to change some things, but that had always been planned. So, while we lost a little time, it wasn't at the expense of getting the tasks completed.

"These tests are a process of continuous development and the programme today was influenced a bit by what we learned at the last test. We also had to test some items that were put into development before the car even took to the track. The next two days will be somewhat different," he added. "We will be doing race simulations and will have the whole race team here, so we will try to mix that with continuing the development. There aren't many chances to run through a whole race weekend before the season starts and we'll do a simulation with each driver. Those should keep us on our toes for the next couple of days."

Driver: Sebastian Vettel
Car: RB8
Laps: 79 laps
Best time: 1:23.265
Circuit length: 4.655km
Fastest lap: S. Vettel (1:23.265)