Translated article about the final test in Barcelona, originally from the portuguese autosport website ->
http://autosport.clix.pt/gen.pl?p=s...s.stories/44205. Enjoy:
quote:
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Ferrari, McLaren and BMW didn’t show their cards
Who has hidden their game better?
The teams that are contenders to win in Australia hidden their game in the last big testing session before the start of the season. Both Ferrari and McLaren, but also BMW, didn’t do the slightest attempt to put laptimes that would impress their opponents, therefore last week’s tests ended up with Trulli topping the times, beating Hamilton, while Coulthard and Rosberg got the following places.
To find the first Ferrari, Raikkonen’s, we have to go down until we reach the ninth time of the week, while Massa was only 13th, behind even Fisichella’s Force India, and the visiting Schumacher got the 15th time, more than 1,6s second behind Trulli. As for the BMW drivers, Kubica was the quickest with the 14th time of the week, while Heidfeld only got the 19th place in the times table, which shows well how far the germans also hidden their game.
Ferrari remains stronger
With the top constructors revealing little about the team’s momentum, it was necessary to observe closely the Grand Prix simulations to get a better picture on the ability of each car and driver two weeks before the World Championship starts. And
it was again very clear that Kimi Raikkonen is the strongest right now, even if his only Grand Prix simulation was briefly interrupted by a gearbox problem, after only six laps.
But when the finnish came back to the track he shown an impressive rhythm, so much that his best lap of the week was the last lap of his “Grand Prix”. No-one else could lap in under 1m22s in race conditions, but Raikkonen managed 1m21,7s in his best lap, after having done the final laps of his simulation around 1m21,9s.
Without the new aerodynamics, but with new mechanical components, namely in the hydraulic system and in the gearbox, Massa did two Grand Prix simulations, and if the first had on average times 0,3s slower than Raikkonen’s, the second was not so good, with the brazilian complaining about having to pass many slow drivers in most of the laps, but also admitting to commit some mistakes.
Hamilton isn’t far
In McLaren both MP4/23 were also in different configurations, with Hamilton testing more new aero bits – namely a new rear wing. Both drivers did short stints, lapping with less fuel than usual despite being far from running on qualifying conditions, so it was also in the longer stints that we saw the true potential of McLaren.
In these conditions it was Hamilton who impressed more. The englishman did his only Grand Prix simulation of the week at the same time Massa was doing a similar attempt (his second and worst attempt), being consistently quicker than Ferrari’s driver. Hamilton ran in similar times to Massa’s previous day race simulation, but was also far from the times Raikkonen put in his last day of work.
written by Luís Vasconcelos in Montmeló
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