Kobayashi pips Buemi with late flier
Date published : 11 Feb 2010 - 18:38:10
Kamui Kobayashi topped the Thursday timesheet at Jerez with a low-fuel flier in his Sauber-Ferrari moments before testing ended for the day.The Japanese driver uncorked a 1m19.950s lap to pip Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi, who had set the pace for most of the day.Much improved weather allowed the teams to make up for track time lost during Wednesday's unrelenting rain, and most took full advantage by logging 80-120 laps.The uncertainty over fuel loads, in a context where just 10kg of fuel carries a lap time penalty of approximately 0.3s and this year's cars have a fuel tank capacity of 160kg, makes the headline times largely meaningless.For the record, Jenson Button was third fastest for McLaren ahead of Nico Hulkenberg's Williams and Tonio Liuzzi in the Force India.Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso were only sixth and seventh respectively, but both spent a large part of the day conducting long runs on heavy fuel loads.Kobayashi spent much of the day in the middle of the order but vaulted to the top after a late red flag caused by Button's McLaren stopping on the circuit.For most of the day we were running with a high fuel load prior to a run with a lighter car before the end of the session, said Sauber's head of track engineering Giampaolo Dall'Ara.Buemi felt he had gained a good feel for the new Toro Rosso STR5 after his two days at the wheel, and will hand over to team-ate Jaime Alguersuari for the remainder of the test.I am pleased with how the past two days have gone and, although rain is never ideal, yesterday's damp conditions meant we could try the wet weather tyres, said Buemi.Today, in the dry, we were able to do a lot of laps, as the car ran reliably.We tried various set-ups and ran with different fuel loads, so we are beginning to get a better understanding of STR5 in general.Button stopped near the end of the session for precautionary reasons after a warning light came on in the McLaren cockpit, but had an otherwise productive day in the MP4-25 conducting a mixture of set-up and tyre evaluation work.Hulkenberg's programme was more severely compromised by technical gremlins in the Williams-Cosworth, which developed a messy hydraulic leak in the morning and later a driveshaft problem, but was quick while the car was running cleanly.Liuzzi gave the Force India VJM03 its first representative run in dry conditions and gave the new car an enthusiastic thumbs-up.For sure we still have to look into a few more areas but overall the car is responding well and reacts to all the changes, said the Italian.We tested different settings and different conditions and overall it was always positive, so I have to say we can be really satisfied about how it's going.Schumacher and Alonso amassed the highest lap tallies (124 and 129 respectively) as they focused primarily on long-run performance.The German said getting so much mileage under his belt was hugely valuable at this stage of his F1 comeback.I am very happy with how the day went today even if we could not finish our schedule completely due to red flags, he said.However I managed to complete a lot of laps which is very precious to me.A new car, a new team and new conditions therefore our first goal has to be to make the car reliable.Days like today help massively in that respect, especially as the weather forecast for the next few days isn't looking quite so rosy.I felt very comfortable driving the car and it was good fun today.Alonso's long-run pace was particularly impressive, the Spaniard setting times in the high-1m21s range near the end of a marathon 48-lap stint, appreciably faster than his rivals managed on somewhat shorter runs.With more rain forecast for Friday and Saturday, Renault put Robert Kubica in its R30 car to get as much feedback as possible in Thursday's dry conditions.The Pole reported that we saw some nice results and learned some interesting things, so overall it was a good day.The team's chief engineer Alan Permane added: We had made a lot of changes for Robert since the last test in Valencia and he's now much more comfortable and happier in the car.The dry weather allowed Mark Webber to put Red Bull's RB6 through its paces for the first time, the Australian completing 100 laps.Timo Glock, by contrast, managed only 11 laps in the Virgin-Cosworth to add to his five exploratory laps on Wednesday.The German caused a red flag during the morning when the VR-01 deposited its front wing on the circuit due to a faulty mounting.The team abandoned its running for the day while it awaited the arrival of new parts, but hopes to rejoin the fray first thing on Friday morning.Testing times from Jerez (Thursday 11 February)1 KOBAYASHI Sauber 1m19.950s (103)2 BUEMI Toro Rosso 1m20.026s (121)3 BUTTON McLaren 1m20.618s (83)4 HULKENBERG Williams 1m20.629s (67)5 LIUZZI Force India 1m20.754s (80)6 SCHUMACHER Mercedes 1m21.083s (124)7 ALONSO Ferrari 1m21.424s (129)8 KUBICA Renault 1m22.003s (103)9 WEBBER Red Bull 1m22.043s (99)10 GLOCK Virgin 1m29.964s (11)* laps completed in brackets
