Abu Dhabi Testing – Past and Future

Racing career of the SF15-T car ends with 2016 tire test

Yas Marina, December 1st – The racing career of the Ferrari SF15-T ended up with a desert marathon, with twelve hours of testing made available to each team. Two days after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen went back to track for a development testing session of the 2016 Pirelli tires. The tire supplier had brought four specifications of their new Ultrasoft compound, coupled with different constructions. Sebastian opened up the day covering 57 laps of the Yas Marina circuit, with a best lap time of 1min44sec940. After lunch break he handed the car over to Kimi, with a similar program which saw the Finn driving 56 laps of the track, the best in 1min44sec456. Lap analysis would be futile as Pirelli had planned a “blind test” here, with no information being given to teams as to the tire specification they were running each time. The tire walls did not carry the usual colored band which helps recognize the different compounds, but “combinations” were seen of the regular 2015 compounds and new test tires, as is the case with Seb who ran the development specs only at the rear of the car. The 2015 season is now officially over.