Esteban Gutierrez was only able to complete 23 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya on the opening day of the second pre-season test after his Haas F1 Team car suffered a fuel system problem on Tuesday.
The Mexican driver ended the day down in eleventh position on the time sheets, ahead only of Manor Racing’s Rio Haryanto, but was resigned to spending most of his day in the garage.
Team Principal Gunther Steiner insists the team will be out on track again on Wednesday for day two having solved the problem, and revealed the team used the afternoon session to go through the processes they will go through during a average race weekend.
“It’s the first time it [the fuel system problem] has cropped up, therefore we need a bit of time to react to it and we’ll be out again tomorrow,” said Steiner.
“We’re working on it now, and it will be worked on overnight. Because the FIA is here we used the afternoon to simulate a race weekend, for the FIA to check the car, for the flexing and that.
“We analysed the problem and told them we could fix it overnight with the night shift, but we need to do some practicing of a whole race weekend with the guys, like the FIA inspections, so we did those in the afternoon.
“We did some t-tray deflections and all that stuff, with the FIA helping us, so all the guys know the processes, and now they’re starting to fix the car.
“I hope we can run the next few days otherwise frustration sets in pretty quick. We didn’t run today so we haven’t ticked certain boxes. We hope we can make it up tomorrow.
“We still have to conduct race distance runs. We want to do more to see if we can do a race distance without a problem. That’s the biggest one. Then if we’ve time we can try set-up changes just to make the car go quicker.”
