Toro Rosso Barcelona testing - Day 3 report

BARCELONA TEST - DAY 3
Circuit: Catalunya, 4.655 kms

Jean-Eric Vergne, Scuderia Toro Rosso

Photo by: xpb.cc

Driver: Jean-Eric Vergne
Car: STR7 – 01
Laps: 78
Best time: 1:24.433

Jean-Eric Vergne took over driving duties for the last two days of this test and he had a trouble free day. The programme was a mix of set-up evaluation and working in race conditions, as it was our first test of the year with the full race team carrying out the pit stop practice. This was important as it is an area where we want to improve for the coming season. With higher temperatures than at the Jerez test and the past two days in Barcelona, conditions were approaching those encountered during the season, which provided useful data regarding tyre management and car cooling.

Jean-Eric Vergne:

“It’s good to be back in the car after Jerez. We got through a lot of work today, including some aero evaluation and different set-ups. We ran all day long on the Medium tyres, which gives us a good baseline to analyse the data. We are learning more about our new car with every lap and it has performed well on this Barcelona track which is always a true test of how a car is performing. Towards the end of the day, I had my first experience of proper Formula 1 pit stops. It was a scary feeling at the beginning, coming in at 100 km/h and seeing so many people. At first, I was worried about hitting someone, but by the end I had got used to it. It’s an exciting experience!”