Pirelli Tests – Day 2: Sebastian Vettel Takes the Lead
On the occasion of the second and final day of testing at the Paul Ricard circuit, it was Sebastian Vettel who achieved the best time, ahead of Daniil Kvyat and Stoffel Vandoorne.
Stoffel Vandoorne will therefore have been the only driver to complete both test days since Ferrari and Red Bull had decided to alternate their two main drivers. But the young Belgian experienced the same frustrations as his teammates last season since his two days of running were marked by breaks imposed by mechanical problems. Nevertheless, he managed to accumulate 127 laps today, which were added to yesterday’s 87.
To conduct this test, Pirelli had decided to run blind, meaning that the Italian manufacturer had not painted its wet weather tires in the traditional way, preventing distinction between full wet and intermediate compounds. Therefore, the teams were unable to know which tires they were using during their various runs. Under these conditions, the different times achieved were not significant.
Furthermore, these times could not be compared with those of yesterday as the track conditions were also different. On the first day, the work consisted of evaluating the tires over short durations on a completely soaked track, whereas today Pirelli was seeking to identify the behavior of its tires on a drying track.
The work doesn’t stop there for the manufacturer, who will now collect all the telemetry data from the three teams to compare it with their own data. The objective is to be able to integrate the collected data to modify the structure of the tires offered during the season.
The 2016 single-seaters from all teams will hit the track during the next official testing session, on February 22, at the Barcelona circuit.
