Barcelona, day 3: They said...

The third practice session started on a wet track before improving over the hours. These particular climatic conditions allowed the teams to gain valuable information with the intermediate tires. Reactions.

Published on 20/02/2011 à 20:44

⁰ View comments)

Vitaly Petrov hoisted his Lotus Renault in second row. “The goal was to cover the distance of a race in the morning. We managed to complete a series of long runs despite a wet track. We have collected new data. I'm starting to understand the tires and the handling of this car,” explains the Russian pilot.

Third of the day, Lewis Hamilton said he was impressed by the consistency of his competitors. “ It is very important to carry out race simulations. If you can do two in one day, that's fantastic. We didn't manage to accumulate that many laps, but I'm sure we will get there. We managed to complete a series of long relays, but we want to ride even more ". The Briton completed 90 laps, including the fastest in 1'23"858.

Despite a difficult morning, notably marked by a spin, Pastor Maldonado still set the 4th fastest time. “ It was a good day for all of us. We lost quite a bit of time this morning, but the afternoon was much better. We gained consistency and tried different things on the car. Everything is going well, and I'm happy because I think we have improved the car a lot since Jerez », confides Frank’s new recruit Williams.

We knew the Red Bull fast with the performance of Hag. We now know that the RB7 is flawlessly reliable. Even though he only placed 5th, Mark Webber covered a lot of kilometers. “ Everything went well today. With 140 laps completed, we have nothing to complain about. We have collected a lot of data about the car and how to get the most out of it. I have to say that the car drove really well. We will come back tomorrow to learn a little more »

Only 10th, Felipe Massa focused on the race simulations. “ It was a very studious day, during which we covered many kilometers in very different conditions. It's important that we managed to carry out a race simulation, where we tried to make the tires last as long as possible. Everything happened without any real surprises. », concludes the Paulist.

Join us tomorrow at 9 a.m. to follow the fourth and final day of testing in Barcelona.