Formula 1: 6 Things We Learned from Jerez Testing and Combined Lap Times

The first official F1 test was held at the Jerez circuit in southern Spain from the seventh to 10th of February.  The four-day event was the first chance for the teams and drivers to get to grips with the cars they'd spent months developing.

There were no major changes to the technical regulations over the winter.  "Blown diffusers" were banned, the exhaust exits were moved and the maximum height of the car's nose was reduced, but overall the 2012 cars are not too different from those which we saw at the end of 2011.

That said, the teams and drivers were still arriving with untested lumps of carbon fibre, rubber and metal.

Technology is sufficiently advanced that every part will already have been thoroughly tested, but an F1 car is a temperamental beast.  Computer simulations of how the car should work don't always correlate exactly with how the car does work.

So when the drivers climbed into the cockpit on day one, they didn't quite know what to expect.  This first four-day test would be spent learning the intimate characteristics of the car.

Sadly for us, that means it wasn't about finding the absolute limit.  But I've followed the sessions as closely as I could from my vantage point 1200 miles away from the circuit, and produced a few tentative conclusions of my own.

Ferrari Have a Lot of Work Still to Do

Taking a close look at each 2012 machine and comparing them to their 2011 counterparts, the Ferrari is perhaps the most changed.  After years of missing out on the title, the Italian team threw caution out of the window and deliberately went in a different direction.

The result is that they have more to learn about their new car than the other teams, and remain even further in the dark about the true pace of the F2012.

Felipe Massa hinted at the problems being encountered:

"

Actually there is a lot of work.  It is a brand new car and it is not a (type of) car that we had in the last years, even to start with.  So it is a car that needs a lot more work, a car that you need a lot more things to try as well.  Today I did so many laps, just trying such different things on the car.  It was a programme really in the direction to understand every single point from the car.

"

Fernando Alonso did produce a quick time on the final day, but it didn't gloss over the feeling the Italian team still have a lot of work to do understanding the F2012.

Toro Rosso Are Looking Good

Speed-wise, anyway—the car itself is fairly ugly.

The Red Bull "B-team" have the least experienced driver lineup on the grid, but the times they produced at Jerez were promising.

The end of 2011 saw the team pushing for points on a more regular basis, and the 2012 car looks like it could be a step forward.  It's not surprising as they no doubt have some form of input from the main team (despite officially being a totally separate entity).

Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo look like they'll have a very good car in which to showcase their talents.

Red Bull Will Be at the Front Again

While it's difficult to ascertain exactly how well each car will fare, a combination of the times it sets, how it sets them and the things that are said can provide a strong hint.

After spending a day on track with it, Lewis Hamilton admitted, "I think you can see the Red Bull looks quick," despite the Austrian team not doing any especially fast lap times.

Red Bull's head of race engineering, Ian Morgan, was also positive, saying the team is "where we expected to be."  That's ominous for the rest of the grid.

Both Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber appeared to produce their lap times consistently and without difficulty, and they were towards the front on each day of the test. 

So I think we can at least fill in one spot of this year's top three runners.

Lotus Have a Good Car

Lotus (formerly Lotus Renault) were the main surprise package of the test.  Kimi Raikkonen set the pace on day one, while Romain Grosjean recorded a lap four tenths of a second faster than anyone else (excluding the 2011 Mercedes).

It's safe to say they were running a setup conductive to setting quick laps, but it's a big positive that two men who didn't race last year were able to produce good times straight out of the bag.

Lotus have been working on the car for a long time, having abandoned development on their 2011 car in the middle of last season.  It's early days, but that decision seems to have paid off.

I don't think they're in a position to challenge for race wins, but the front of the midfield—around the place Mercedes were last season—looks a likely spot for the E20.

McLaren Are in Their Usual Place

In recent years, McLaren haven't been wonderful straight out of the box.  Their cars seem difficult to get to grips with straight away, but pace is usually found after a bit of work.

Jenson Button appears to have done much of that discovery work at Jerez.  His times were relatively poor, but once Lewis Hamilton got a go, the car produced better times.  Not fantastic, but better.  Hamilton said:

"

My initial thoughts were pretty good.  It was quite a tough day where you had to go through a lot of test items, but it went pretty smoothly.  No nasty surprises.  Nice surprise is that it feels reasonably quick, so that's a good thing, although obviously it can always be better.  I was a bit cautious because looking at the times Jenson was experiencing over the last couple of days, I wasn't really sure where we were going to be.  But when I got the new tyres on I was able to extract the grip quite easily and felt there was definitely something we could work with.

"

Like Ferrari, McLaren are in something of a limbo.  It's safe to say they'll end up near the front, but they're a lot further from knowing how their car will go than Red Bull are.

The beauty contest appears to be sewn-up, though.

Force India Are Getting Something Good for Jules Bianchi

There's no racing reason to give someone else's driver—Bianchi is contracted to Ferrari—one of your race drivers' cars for half of the Friday practice sessions over the course of the season. 

Force India are doing just that.  So we knew—or rather, "strongly suspected"—something had been passed over the table.

Moving on, there's even less reason to let someone with less experience than your two relatively green race drivers take the car out during the very first testing session of the year.

They did that as well.  As a Sky Sports report said, it would appear Force India are taking Bianchi's role very seriously indeed. 

One has to wonder why.  Exactly how much are Ferrari giving them in exchange for allowing their protégé to have a season of testing experience?

Combined Times

The combined times from the entire test only serve to make it more difficult to draw any solid conclusions, but here they are.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Fastest Time	Laps
*01	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:17.613	174
02	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	1:18.419	212
*03	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1:18.561	174
04	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:18.877	106
05	Mark Webber	Red Bull	1:19.184	151
06	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	1:19.297	146
07	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	1:19.464	166
08	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	1:19.587	157
09	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	1:19.597	159
10	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus	1:19.670	192
11	Sergio Perez	Sauber	1:19.770	116
12	Paul di Resta	Force India	1:19.772	170
13	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	1:19.834	182
14	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:19.977	90
15	Bruno Senna	Williams	1:20.132	250
16	Jules Bianchi	Force India	1:20.221	46
17	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:20.454	164
18	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:20.688	147
19	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	1:21.197	122
20	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	1:21.518	167
*21	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT	1:22.128	108
22	Jarno Trulli	Caterham	1:22.198	117
23	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham	1:23.324	74

* indicates 2011 car with 2012 tyres.

The only thing which jumps out is that Caterham look to be in a very poor position—but I don't think they're as bad as they appear. 

Hopefully, we'll learn more about where things stand at the next test in Barcelona.  But until then, the most important thing I realised as I followed the testing.

McLaren aside, the cars look just as horrible on the track as they do on the presentation stands.