TOROSSO REVIEWS BARCELONA TEST 02 – DAY 1

First day of the second 2018 F1 Testing session, here in Barcelona. Pierre Gasly was at the wheel of the STR13 today: here our team’s reaction…

Circuit de Barcelona – Catalunya (4.655km)
Car: STR13-03

Driver: Pierre Gasly
Best time: 1:20.973 – Laps: 54

Pierre Gasly (Car 10):
“It was a really positive day overall from the performance side, we had a small issue this afternoon with the brake system which took longer than expected to fix, so we didn’t run as much as I would have liked – that’s part of testing thou! So far everything has run perfectly, the car was pretty nice and we made some improvements compared to last week, so we are headed in the right direction.” 

James Key (Technical Director):
“We had a reasonably productive morning where we were able to do some running in more normal conditions compared to last week. Pierre was happier with the car, we have made a lot of setup changes from what we learned last week. The engineers have done well to pull the analysis together in the short time between tests and find some promising directions. We also did a bit of work on the aerodynamics side taking further measurements first thing then moved onto more chassis setup tests and initial investigation into tyre performance in the warmer conditions. Unfortunately, this afternoon we suffered a brake system issue on the chassis side which was difficult to trace and took a long time to address, needless to say it is important to ensure any issues with critical systems are dealt with correctly and as the afternoon went on time became increasingly short to get the car back on track. Sadly we missed some running this afternoon due to that problem, however we will work overnight to make sure that we are ready and set for tomorrow. We apologise to the drivers and Honda for missing a good opportunity of running this afternoon and getting through more the long test item list we still have, however we need to put that right for the rest of the test and make good use of the remaining three days.”

Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director):
“The first day of the second pre-season test got underway in Barcelona under blue Spanish skies and much warmer temperatures than we experienced last week. It means that conditions on track were much closer to those we will experience at the races. Last week we concentrated on data acquisition and systems checks and, from today, our programme is more race focused. Unfortunately, we have lost some track time, stopping running in the afternoon because of an issue on the car. Identifying problems like this is what testing is for and we will make further preparation to make up the lost time over the remaining three days.”