Analysis of pre-season for Barwa Addax Team

Johnny Cecotto

Photo by: GP2 Media Service

“Very positive” is the best way to qualify Barwa Addax Team and the work carried out over the two series of pre-season tests, which have recently taken place at the Spanish circuits of Jerez and Barcelona. Both drivers for this season, Johnny Cecotto and Josef Král, as well as their engineers, Philippe Gautheron and Emilio Lozano, have all stated that they have been working more towards getting things right for the coming season rather than simply setting fast times. They have dedicated a great part of the sessions finding out how both car and driver react to the new and different compounds of tyre that the new norms have offered up for this year’s campaign. It is still early days to judge the performance in situations where there are significant temperature changes and there is still work to be done to assess the differences between the tyre set up in qualifications and on race day.

Philippe Gautheron, Cecotto’s track engineer: “Johnny had a bad time in Jerez due to suffering from a temperature but showed a lot of character to be among the leading positions.

We were able to make some technical conclusions, but with this track being quite unique, we have left certain things for Barcelona.

We spent most of the time carrying out a combination of tests including geometries, modifications in set ups, tyre pressures etc. On the last day the 3 runs were very good with a really good rhythm, improving clearly on the times set on the previous days and with degrading under control.

We have been able to compare the performance and degrading of Prime and Option tyres as well as comparing 2 philosophies of important set up.

Johnny shows he has the capability of driving really quickly without too much degrading in race conditions. We still need to improve on qualification after having analyzed the data in these tests”.

Emilio Lozano, Král’s track engineer; “Jerez air temperature 8ºC track temperature 7ºC. 3 days testing. We were given 5 sets of prime tyres and 2 option. We have a tight Schedule of training sessions. The results were nothing really special, but at least we finished having learnt a lot with lots of important conclusions obtained.

At the weekend we fly to Valencia where Josef carries out a 4h session on the simulator, as preparation for Barcelona

Montmeló, air temperature 7ºC, track temperature 5ºC. The same tyres as in Jerez. A difficult day for Josef. Electrical problems on his first run in the morning which dragged on till the afternoon session. Throughout the night all the electronic cables in the car were replaced and the problem was solved. This would tighten the planned schedule for the test even more. We dedicated the 2nd day to improving on our performance in the timed sessions, getting good results. Leaving the third day for setting up the car for race day conditions”.

Johnny Cecotto, official Barwa Addax Team driver: “When I was arriving in Jerez I started to feel very sick and very soon I got 39°C fever which made it very difficult for me to test properly. All in all things went very well because especially the first day we could complete almost the whole test program, the only thing was that for me it was very difficult to complete the laps because of the sickness. It was great to drive the car cause I straight away had a good feeling with the car and it allowed me to do whatever I wanted, it was very nice to drive.

We managed to work very hard in the Barcelona tests and to test a lot of things. Shamefully we had a few problems with tyre warm up which sometimes made us go in the wrong direction. We are now working to analyze all of the data to thoroughly understand all of the setup changes that we made, for sure we will be much quicker as the track temperatures go up. What I was very impressed with was the long-runs because we had an incredible pace and for a lot of laps with a very low degradation and I think that this will give us a big advantage in the races. The tests have been very important to understand a lot of things especially the difference between the two tyre compounds and that this year we can use the complete aero package in qualifying. I can't wait to go to Malaysia for the first race where I'm sure that we will be very competitive”.

Josef Král, official Barwa Addax Team driver:“Even when we did not show any really strong performance we are quite well prepared for the beginning of the season. We just followed our testing program and we collected many useful informations which will help us through the upcoming season. It was very important for us to find and understand all differences between the option and the prime tires together with higher down force, so I am sure that we are very well prepared and now I am just looking forward to the first race in Sepang. I am sure that the changes in rules will make this season very interesting and very challenging for drivers and teams.

Both drivers set almost identical times and we were able to exchange a lot of information with the engineers of the Barwa Addax Team, working and focusing on the conditions we are going to come up against at the beginning of the season in Malaysia and Bahrain where the temperatures are going to be much higher”.