Jenson breaks lap record

[Bollocks#999]

Jenson Button has broken the lap record at Barcelona on the fourth day of testing at the Spanish track.

The BAR driver lapped the Circuit de Catalunya over four tenths quicker than the previous record which was set at the track last year.

Button was driving the hybrid 005 chassis and finished almost a second ahead of Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher, who had his first spin in an F1 car since the Japanese GP last year.

The German was on the pace from the off setting the quickest time in a Ferrari this week. Test driver Luca Badoer was the other Ferrari in action; the Italian was just three tenths of Schumacher in fifth place.

Fernando Alonso continues to keep his nose in the action setting the third quickest time for the third day running. Today though the Spaniard was driving the new Renault R24 bettering Trulli’s time in the same car by nearly two seconds.

The second Renault was driven by Frenchman Franck Montagny who finished the day in 12th spot.

The Williams trio of Ralf Schumacher, Juan Pablo Montoya and Marc Gene found themselves further down the order after dominating the test sessions for the past two days.

Schumacher was once again the quickest of the three in the FW26, which was also driven by Montoya.

Further down the order was Germany’s Nick Heidfeld who returned to the Jordan cockpit once again. The team have yet to announce their drivers for this season and no doubt Heidfeld will be doing his utmost to impress.

Heidfeld was joined in the Jordan garage by Timo Glock, who made his F1 debut with the team on Tuesday and although he finished at the bottom of the timesheets he managed to knock over a second off his time.

In Valencia David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen continued to put the MP4-19 through its paces.

The Scot was again the quicker of the two and managed to break his own lap record set in November last year.

Testing continues at both tracks on Friday.


Testing times from Barcelona

1 BUTTON BAR 1m14.607s
2 M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari 1m15.410s
3 ALONSO Renault 1m15.506s
4 R.SCHUMACHER Williams 1m15.736s
5 BADOER Ferrari 1m15.767s
6 GENE Williams 1m15.820s
7 MONTOYA Williams 1m16.251s
8 PANIS Toyota 1m16.507s
9 FISICHELLA Sauber 1m16.529s
10 SATO BAR 1m16.560s
11 WEBBER Jaguar 1m17.173s
12 MONTAGNY Renault 1m17.447s
13 HEIDFELD Jordan 1m17.530s
14 KLIEN Jaguar 1m18.029s
15 BRISCOE Toyota 1m18.106s
16 GLOCK Jordan 1m18.236s

Testing times from Valencia

1 COULTHARD McLaren 1m09.697s
2 RAIKKONEN McLaren 1m10.06ss

 

[Mike Rotch]

An impressive time for Button, but BAR have since admitted that they were running light when he did the time. Still, not too shabby.

 

[millencolin]

yeah not too shabby at all. but you cant really rely on test times to see how the car will perform at races. Pizzonia did good at testing the jag last year..........whats pizzonia up to nowadays

 

[scuderia229]

Originally posted by millencolin
yeah not too shabby at all. but you cant really rely on test times to see how the car will perform at races. Pizzonia did good at testing the jag last year..........whats pizzonia up to nowadays

I like Jenson, but I bet his car was on fumes with super super soft tires. A car like the Honda doesn't have THAT huge of a performance jump.

But ya testing times are useless for anything other than the teams testing the cars, thus the word testing.

Isn't Williams re-hiring Pizzonia as the 2nd test driver for 04?

 

[ExigeEvan]

Now if they can do 60 laps of that, and not be far off the pace, and keep the car going the entire time, we will have reason to celebrate

 

[scuderia229]

Originally posted by ExigeExcel
Now if they can do 60 laps of that, and not be far off the pace, and keep the car going the entire time, we will have reason to celebrate

What, you don't enjoy seeing Honda engines go "boom"....I bet toyota does!

haha.

I would liek to see jenson and sato do well this seaosn, I like both drivers...but Honda needs to pull their collective thumbs out of their asses and build a decent engine. Then agian BAR needs to do the same and build a decent car.

I'd leve to see Honda buy out BAr completely and make the F1 team a full factory Honda team. I bet they will soon, sooner if Toyota starts pushing Renault and winning GPs.

Until BAR is removed from the situation I'm afraid Jenson and Sato are screwed.

 

[Bollocks#999]

Jenson did run slower the next day, in the 17's, but hey a lap record is a lap record

 

[Party for GT4]

I'm not allowed to say too much about settings because I signed a confidentiality agreement, but last summer for work experience I was at the Southampton University and the were giving a BAR 1/2 size prototype.

It was pretty amazing, this sexy piece of carbon fibre in front of me.
According to sources, the aerodynamics mean it is more efficient than last year's Ferrari.
Apparently they want third in the constructors championship this year.

 

[scuderia229]

Originally posted by Party for GT4
I'm not allowed to say too much about settings because I signed a confidentiality agreement, but last summer for work experience I was at the Southampton University and the were giving a BAR 1/2 size prototype.

It was pretty amazing, this sexy piece of carbon fibre in front of me.
According to sources, the aerodynamics mean it is more efficient than last year's Ferrari.
Apparently they want third in the constructors championship this year.

I've read alot of quotes recently about Jenson saying the new car is a challenger for race wins and ever top for. Obviously the new car (based on the hybrid's performance) has so advantages. But! If Honda can't make an engine that doesn't go boom what does it matter.

See I generally like Jenson AND Sato. They are two of the better drivers on the grid ANDsee like nice guys, hard not to like them. Honda has the knowledge but BAR seems as if trained monkeys could da a better job. If BAR was removed from the equation I would see this team right up there.

I hope for the best for them but my expectations (like many others) are low. Maybe that is good for BAR/Honda...any perfromance gains won't go un-noticed!

 

[Party for GT4]

Button is starting to become the typical F1 driver though, all 'yeah, for sure' and 'cool man, cool' stuff.

 

[vat_man]

That's not the typical F1 driver! The typical F1 driver would say 'the British American Racing Honda team are very pleased with progress so far, and are working well with our new partners Michelin'.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

I was reading the other day that Honda's involvement in F1 is scheduled to come to an end this year, and that they will take a decision towards the middle of the year with regard to whether they will continue in F1.

To be honest, I was a bit surprised by it, as I didn't know that they had a finite timescale. I think that they will continue, and that they'll be looking for closer integration with the BAR team. I think that Scuderia229's comments about BAR are probably unfair, because BAR have come on in leaps and bounds since they sorted out their political differences, and Geoff Willis does now appear to have control of the car's design.

I think we could see BAR regularly harrassing Renault this year.

 

[wee_man]

Ok so the winter testing is nearly over, and BAR Honda, are still at the top of the test sheets and going strong and reliably. What''s people thoughts on this? I don't know why but I have a feeling that they won't be so quick when it actually comes to a proper racing environment. I don't know. You can't really read to much into it, but you never know.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Well, the problem with reading the charts of top lap times over a day is you can't tell how they will fare over a long run. My guess is that they'll have both cars in the top ten at a lot of races, but I still think that reliability is their big problem.

 

[wee_man]

Yeah, I thought of that as well. Even though they seem to be in the top of the test times for fastest laps, you could find that all their other laps are 2 seconds slower . I have to say though Jaguar have seemed to up their game recently, with this new aero package on the car .

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Yep, but they still have problems with rear tyre wear, so expect them to qualify well, and then drpoo back down the field.

 

[wee_man]

Yeah I've been hearing about that. None of the other teams experiance it do they?

 

[Bollocks#999]

Speaking of breaking lap records, Michael smashed the record at Imola running a sub 1:20

related article: http://www.itv-f1.com/news/news_story/19873

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Originally posted by wee_man
Yeah I've been hearing about that. None of the other teams experiance it do they?

Well, with the single lap qualifying, you can really see it. If a car qualifies ahead of its real pace, it's got problems with rear tyre wear, because it's an indication that the rears are heating up very quickly.

I think that Jaguar and Toyota were the big losers through this. Seems only to affect the Michelin runners.

And Bollocks, Imola's pretty cold at the moment...

 

[Bollocks#999]

So I just read, Ferrari packed up early and went home, of the 3 cars that ran Ryan Briscoe was fastest, through the rain and snow, Montoya's car broke down but was almost 2 seconds of Briscoes time...