Alfa Romeo Racing has said that they are satisfied with their performance following the fourth day of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The day’s running was split with test driver Robert Kubica behind the wheel of the C39 in the morning, while Kimi Räikkönen took over in the afternoon.
Positive, but challenging
Kubica appeared positive in his reflection on his time in the car, and was not concerned where he ended up on the timing sheets, stressing that collecting useable data was the most important thing.
“It has been a positive morning in the car for me. Times don’t matter – first or twentieth, what really counts is finishing the day having completed your testing programme, and we did that,” said the Pole.
“The car felt better compared to last week, we already did a few tweaks and I could feel the improvement. We have a lot of data to go through to fully understand their effect, and two more days to get an even better level of confidence in the car. We know what we have to do.”
Räikkönen in contrast said the day had proven to be a challenge, but that was to be expected at this point in the season. He said the team were overall happy with what they had achieved, but have work to do ahead of the season opener at Albert Park.
“It has been a challenging session, but this is quite to be expected during testing. We focused mostly on long runs and trying different setup options, which means the team had to learn how best to prepare the car.
“In the end, we can be fairly satisfied with our long run pace, although we know there is still a lot of work ahead of us before Melbourne,” he said.
Alfa Romeo making progress
Team principal Frédéric Vasseur has said the team are making progress with both their qualifying simulations and longer runs.
“We had a split day, with Robert in the car this morning and Kimi in the afternoon, so we divided our programme into two very distinct parts. We are satisfied with both – we are making progress with our C39 in the quali runs and the longer stints alike.
“We have two more days in the car with Antonio [Giovinazzi] and Kimi, the final outings for each of them ahead of Melbourne, so maximising our time on track in the rest of the week will be key to our preparedness for the season,” Vasseur concluded.
