Day 2: Pirelli driver and team quotes

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso: Overall, it was a positive day. We had no particular problems with the Pirelli tyres and we were able to gather a lot of data for their engineers to work on. We are pleased with the way we worked and in how we were able to adapt the set-up of the car to suit the new tyres, especially in terms of the work we can do on the new car in preparation for next season. From what we could see, the switch from Bridgestone to Pirelli should not be a traumatic one.

Being back on this track after the disappointment of Sunday? It’s normal that all of us still feel very disappointed, but that’s part of sport. I would think it’s the same thing the Dutch football players felt when they lost the World Cup final back in July: then, after a few weeks, they realised they had achieved something, while so many others had not even got anywhere close. The same goes for us: the final victory eluded us, but in any case we had a great season, with a fantastic fight back in the second part of the year. Next year we will try again, because we are Ferrari!

Red Bull

RelatedPosts

How the Austrian GP cemented F1 2025 as a two-horse race

11 hours ago

Toto Wolff: Kimi Antonelli’s ‘unfortunate’ Austria F1 error ‘can happen to the greats’

12 hours ago

Sebastian Vettel: We have had two busy days on track, getting our first impressions of the new tyres, analysing how they perform and looking at some things for next year. There is still a lot to do, but I think the tyres are already better than expected. Since February we haven’t really had time to do any in-depth testing on track, so these two days have given us a chance to reflect on things we have tried during the season.

Ian Morgan, Head of Race Engineering: It’s been interesting to work with different tyres here and it was good to have the opportunity to get information using a car we know well – the RB6 – before starting to work with the new car next year. Overall we have done everything we planned to and we’re looking forward to working with Pirelli in the future. It’s sad that this is the last day of running for the RB6 – it’s a car that we have enjoyed a great deal of success with this year – but we’re looking forward to 2011.

Renault

Robert Kubica: It has been quite a productive day and it’s good to complete so many laps on the new tyres. Like yesterday we ran with both compounds and collected a lot of data, which will be useful for us and for Pirelli as well. Overall it has been a positive couple of days and now we have to try and extract as many conclusions as we can from the data. My initial feeling is good and it seemed that the tyres got better as the track conditions improved throughout the day.

Alan Permane, Chief Engineer:  We’ve had a second useful day on the Pirelli tyres and managed to complete medium length runs on both the soft and medium compounds without any significant issues. This allowed us to start understanding the tyre characteristics and assess the degradation rates. We struggled with some understeer today, which we never totally got rid of, so we still need to try and understand that. Over the next couple months we will continue building our relationship with Pirelli by exchanging data so that we’re ready for winter testing to resume next February.

Williams

Tom McCullough, Senior Test Engineer: We evaluated different braking systems today from which we have some interesting results. The rest of the session was spent concentrating on performance set-up work and understanding the new tyres. In summary, the team has had a productive week in Abu Dhabi. We’re pleased with the progress made with Pirelli, and we’ve collected plenty of valuable information to work on before returning to the track with the new car next year.

Rubens Barrichello: Another full day of testing today. We did a lot of laps! We learnt everything about the tyre we needed to and have a good amount of data check out over the winter. I want to thank all of the team for the effort they have put in over the year. They have been great to work with. I am now looking forward to going home and recharging over the next two months and coming back refreshed in 2011.

Force India

Dominic Harlow, Chief Race Engineer: We have been looking forward to this Pirelli tyre test since we received the first real information about the tyres from them in early September. Over these two days we’ve covered more than two race distances and have been impressed with Pirelli’s tyres.

We’ve allowed all three of our drivers to make an overall assessment in comparison to this year’s baseline, and then we’ve carried out further parameterised testing with the two compounds available. In addition we have run with a great many additional sensors and data acquisition systems to collect as much information as possible from the tyres on track. Having used eight sets, four option and four prime, we feel we’ve built a reasonable early picture of the tyres at a circuit which, although changing in condition, has proven productive for testing.

The next steps are for us to incorporate what we have learned into the development of VJM04, and for Pirelli’s engineers to analyse the data they have collected as they determine the tyre specifications that will be available to us when we are next testing in February 2011.

Sauber

Kamui Kobayashi: Overall it was good to have this test with the new Pirelli tyres. Despite some technical problems with the car this morning I still gained a little bit more experience with these tyres and we got more data for next year. It was my last run with this car, so I want to say thank you C29! I also want to thank the team, and I’m looking forward to continuing to work with them.

Sergio Pérez: It was a pretty good day for me even though we had a few problems, but we still got work done and have got a lot of data to be analysed now. It was important for me to do longer runs. I also felt a bit more comfortable with the car and more familiar with the procedures and the engineers, which enabled me to give better feedback to them. I’m quite happy and looking forward to pre-season testing.

James Key, Technical Director: It was another useful day with the new tyres but both drivers suffered from technical failures which compromised our programme. We will look into these issues when we are back in the factory. We learned a little bit more about how the tyres are behaving and it was important for Sergio to get his first run on Pirelli tyres. We had only two sets for him. The main part of his programme was to run on race fuel levels to get a feeling for the car in race condition. Thank you to the team for all the hard work this year! We are looking forward to returning with the new car.

Lotus

Jarno Trulli: It’s been a very positive day. It was good to try the Pirelli tyres for the first time and while we have obviously got a lot of work ahead of us I think this was a good start. We will need to focus on the driveability of the tyres – on performance they were good, but we will need to work together in a clear direction to maximise the handling of the car. The hard compounds were pretty consistent, a little less so with the softs, but we have gathered a lot of data that will play an important part in the development of next year’s car. Now the season is over I want to thank the whole team for their work this year – we have finished where we wanted to be and everyone in the team has played their part in helping us reach our goals, so thank you to them and the fans for everything this year.

Mike Gascoyne, Lotus Racing Chief Technical Officer: Another successful day for us and a successful conclusion to both the test with Pirelli and the year in general. My thanks to Jarno for his work today – he gave us some excellent feedback which will give us valuable data for the development of the 2011 car. As this is the last run for the T127 I also want to thank the whole team for all their efforts in what has been a fantastic year and thank all our fans for giving us such great support throughout the season. Now we look ahead to 2011 and we are all excited about taking the next step forward with the new package in what is certain to be another very exciting chapter in our story.

Hispania

Dr. Colin Kolles, Team Principal: After gaining a lot of data about the new Pirell tyres, we used last night to analyze all of it and define our testing program for today. We tried to get more data at the last day of testing and we have been able to learn more about the tyres and how to use them. During this week we have given three talented young drivers the opportunity to get experience in a Formula 1 car. It was good to work with them and we hope to see them in Formula 1 soon. Our aim during this testing week was to do as many laps as possible and to have as much information about the new Pirelli tyres and the car behavior into the winter break to be able to keep on working with and be well prepared for the next tests before the new season begins.

Pastor Maldonado: I am very happy to have been able to do the two days of the Pirelli test with Hispania Racing. Today we tried different settings on the car to find the right set-up with the new tyres. Our focus was not on doing the best lap time but on getting a lot of data which will be important for the development of the car for next year. I really enjoyed being in a Formula 1 car and getting more experience. I am already looking forward to the next season when I hopefully can make use of it in Formula 1.