BARCELLONA TESTS: 139 laps today: “Too early to draw any conclusions”

Three days of testing so far, with Sebastian Vettel at the wheel for two of them, therefore not enough for the driver to have a clear picture of the current situation. That will only happen in Melbourne. For now, Seb can take heart from some statistics: 139 laps completed today, to be added to the 129 from Monday, giving a total distance covered of 1247.54 kilometres in the cockpit of the SF70H at the Catalan track.

“A lot, but never enough. That’s what testing is for, to give you an idea. And the idea is that these cars, as a result of the new regulations, are very different to last year, in the way they look and in the way of driving them. We are more or less at the performance levels of ten years ago, with a lot of aerodynamic downforce, but also with quite a lot more weight. They are also more physical and at the end of the day, you feel tired, but this is normal for the first outing since the winter break. The tyres are also different and they behave more consistently. We have seen more or less what we expected: the cars are quicker in the corners and slower down the straights, because of the drag. But they are also great fun to drive.”
Conclusions? “It’s too early to understand the available potential: we focused on our programme, without paying the slightest attention to what the other teams were doing. All winter we have prepared so as to get here in the best possible shape. But there are still around four weeks to go to the first race and there is much work to do, so much in our programme. The stop towards the end doesn’t bother me: we were trying something that didn’t work, that’s all.”
Tomorrow, Thursday, it will once again be Kimi Raikkonen’s turn. The track will be watered so that the drivers can try the wet weather tyres.