Red Bull's dominance of winter testing continued today on the opening day of the final test in Barcelona.
Mark Webber set the fastest time of the day as the team completed a programme which included an entire race weekend simulation: procedures for P3, qualifying, and a race.
After the bad weather in the last two Jerez tests, all the teams were pleased to see the sun shining of the Circuit de Catalunya.
Ian Morgan, Head of Race Engineering, was pleased with work completed, but said that the day had not completely without reliability issues. “Today was always planned as a race weekend simulation day, so we did some testing along with P3 and qualifying in the morning and a race simulation in the afternoon. Everything went very well up until halfway through the race simulation, when something in the data made us decide to stop the car on track. It was nothing major though and we got the car repaired and back out until the end of the session. It went well today, apart from that small reliability issue.”
Mark Webber also summarised the day positively. “We had a pretty good day of testing. We did some simulations and performance items in the morning and a race simulation in the afternoon. We had a precautionary stop in the middle of the race simulation because of a gearbox oil alarm, but the guys got the car turned around pretty quickly and we finished the session, so it wasn't too bad.”
Sebastian Vettel is in the car for the next two days of testing, and Webber returns for the final day of the test on Sunday.