Kamui Kobayashi topped the times at today’s day of testing at the Jerez circuit, while at the opposite end of the scale Timo Glock was having a nightmare of a day with his new Virgin Racing squad.
Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi had been at the top of the timesheets for most of the session, but a quick low fuel run in the last minutes promoted Kobayashi to first by under a tenth of a second,
But like everyone else has been – Kobayashi was cautious over his testing pace; “Definitely we have a good position at the moment, but it’s still difficult to say where we are. We have to be optimistic and we have to work really hard, focus on improving our car and communicating with the team – and just wait until Bahrain.”
In third was Jenson Button, who caused a red flag late in the session after stopping on the track. Nico Hulkenburg also had his share of problems – his car came grinding to a halt early on due to a hydraulic leak, but the Williams mechanics fixed the car and by the session end he picked up fourth.
Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso‘s times were quite slow today – but both were doing long runs in 6th and 7th place – Alonso clocking 42 laps in one stint alone. The Ferrari has looked quick in testing so far, both on low and high fuel runs, possibly a sign of things to come.
Robert Kubica was 8th after Renault decided to swap him with Vitaly Petrov to help test the car more effectively with what little dry running was avaliable. However Petrov will take Kubica’s place tomorrow.
It was not a good day for Virgin Racing however – Glock only managed 11 laps before the front wing mounting failed and left him in the garage for the rest of the session. The team identified the problem – however spare parts are having to be flown out from Britain for tomorrow’s test session to rectify it.
“Overall I think that’s part of being in a new team,” said Glock. “We have to take it like it is and try to get as much running as possible. I said already at the launch that we will have problems which no one knows so far. This is normal. We have to sort it out as quick as possible and it’s good that we have it at the test.”
Pos Driver Car Time Laps 1. Kamui Kobayashi BMW Sauber 1:19.950 103 2. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso 1:20.026 121 3. Jenson Button Vodafone McLaren Mercedes 1:20.618 83 4. Nico Hulkenberg Williams 1:20.629 67 5. Tonio Liuzzi Force India 1:20.754 80 6. Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP Petronas 1:21.083 124 7. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:21.424 129 8. Robert Kubica Renault 1:22.003 103 9. Mark Webber Red Bull 1:22.043 99 10. Timo Glock Virgin Racing 1:29.964 11
