Marcus Ericsson felt it was an extremely good day at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Thursday, with the Swede ending seventh fastest overall, completing one hundred and forty-eight laps in the process.
The Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team racer divided his day between aerodynamic tests and race simulations, and ultimately his best time of 1:19.244s was good enough for seventh, albeit he was 2.062 seconds behind Sebastian Vettel.
Ericsson’s next venture in the car will be during free practice for the Australian Grand Prix, but between now and then, there is a lot of data to trawl through to improve the performance of the C37-Ferrari.
“Overall, the day was a positive one for me,” said Ericsson. “In the morning, we completed some aerodynamic testing and ran on all of the softer tyre compounds.
“In the afternoon, we focused on a race simulation. It was interesting to see how our new car behaved on the longer stints, and we gained some good insights there. Now we have to put all of our learnings together and focus on preparing for Melbourne.”
Technical director Jörg Zander felt it was a useful day of testing on Thursday, and he hopes for more of the same when Charles Leclerc takes to the track for his final day in the car on Friday, before the season begins in Australia at the end of the month.
“It has been a useful day of testing today,” said Zander. “We conducted some aerodynamic and tyre tests this morning, followed by a race simulation in the afternoon.
“This enabled us to gather a good amount of data, which will be helpful for our final day of winter testing tomorrow, as well as the first race of the season. All in all, a productive day.”
