Jordan's Track Talk

Tag: Barcelona

  • Pre-Season Barcelona

    The F1 2022 cars have finally hit the track as pre-season running in Barcelona started on Wednesday lets take a look on what has happened across the 3 days.

    Day 1-

    Morning Session-

    Leclerc set the early benchmark and then later improved, the conditions warming up after a chilly start to set the quickest lap of 1m 20,165s, the Ferrari driver went on to tally up near 80 laps and ended up three-tenths ahead of Lando Norris- the McLaren driver having improved to P2.

    The Mercedes of George Russell was therefore bumped to P3 as the 1pm deadline approached but completed 75 laps, with Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel in fourth. The reigning champ, enjoyed the highest lap count (8) as he finished sith behind Yuki Tsunoda in P5.

    Afternoon Session-

    Lando Norris set the fastest overall time in the opening pre-season session, Leclerc’s morning time of 1m 20.165s put him top before Norris improved to 1m 19.568s by the end of Day 1, that bumped Leclerc down to P2 and his teammate down to third.

    Every team bar Alfa Romeo and Haas completed a century of laps on the opening day.

    PositionDriverTimeLaps
    1Lando Norris1:19.951102
    2Charles Leclerc1:20.16580
    3Carlos Sainz1:20.41673
    4George Russell1:20.78477
    5Lewis Hamilton1:20.92950
    6Sebastian Vettel1:21.27652
    7Yuki Tsunoda1:21.638121
    8Fernando Alonso1:21.746127
    9Max Verstappen1:22.246147
    10Valtteri Bottas1:22.57223
    Top 10 from Day 1

    Day 2-

    Morning Session-

    Daniel Ricciardo set the fastest time of the morning on Day 2, with the benchmark being 1m 20.355s with 10 minutes remaining, eclipsing Carlos Sainz’s existing benchmark by two tenths of a second.

    Perez brought out the first red flag, having coasted to a halt at Turn 12, half an hour before lunch break, the stoppage was lifted with 15 minutes left, but Perez did not re-emerge to complete the morning session.

    Afternoon Session-

    Charles Leclerc topped the leader board on the afternoon session with a 1m 19.698s with Gasly taking P2 in which dropped McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo to P3.

    There was a second red flag of the day but first of the afternoon session, this time being Nikita Mazepin as he stopped with a damage fuel pump which caused a 15 minute stop. Sergio Perez’s afternoon was quite short as he didn’t emerge until late in the day.

    PositionDriverTimeLaps
    1Charles Leclerc1:19.68979
    2Pierre Gasly1:19.918147
    3Daniel Ricciardo1:20.288126
    4George Russell1:20.53766
    5Carlos Sainz1:20.54671
    6Sebastian Vettel1:20.78474
    7Sergio Perez1:21.43078
    8Nikita Mazepin1:21.51242
    9Alexander Albon1:21.53147
    10Guanyu Zhou1:21.88571
    Top 10 from Day 2

    Day 3-

    Morning Session-

    Mercedes topped the third morning session as George Russel led the leaderboard, with Max Verstappen in 2nd and Sebastian Vettel in 3rd, but five red flags, punctuated proceedings. All 10 cars emerged on a chilly Barcelona morning but the session was red-flagged before the hour mark when Alpine’s Alonso stopped with smoke emerging from the back of his car. Alpine then stated they would not be running again due to hydraulics issue.

    Gasly brought out the second pause when he crashed at Turn 5, causing front wing and suspension damage. Guanyu Zhou stopped in the gravel at Turn 10 after Gasly’s incident, but the session was once again stopped when he crawled to a halt on the main straight. The fifth red flag was when Vettel stopped with 5 minutes left

    Afternoon Session-

    Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the week with a 1m 19.138s as Pirelli conducted a wet weather tyre test. His team-mate then dropped with P2, with Sergio Perez jumped up the order to round of top 3.

    A few teams run into problem in which they was not able to run in the afternoon sessionWe are back in two weeks for the official pre-season test on March 10th to 12th, then set to return a week after that for the first round.

    PositionDriverTimeLaps
    1Lewis Hamilton1:19.13894
    2George Russell1:19.23366
    3Sergio Perez1:19.55674
    4Max Verstappen1:19.75659
    5Sebastian Vettel1:19.82448
    6Charles Leclerc1:19.83144
    7Carlos Sainz1:20.07292
    8Alex Albon1:20.31894
    9Nicholas Latifi1:20.69913
    10Daniel Ricciardo1:20.75086
    Top 10 from Day 3

  • Round 4- Spain Quali

    Get in there!!! That is 100 poles for Lewis Hamilton 🙌🏻👏🏻 His closely followed by Verstappen and then Bottas…

    The two Ferrari boys seemed to be going good with Leclerc starting P4 and Sainz P6 they have definitely fount the pace…

    Ocon really surprised me he splits the Ferrari’s and obviously the improvements to the Alpine are working as Alonso starts in P10, not the best showing for his home race however😬

    I actually expected better from Perez… his starting in P8 as he spun at turn 13 earlier in Q3 which meant he could only set one time in the session, he will be on the hunt tomorrow…

    A team I haven’t mentioned recently is the Alpha Tauri’s, I feel like Gasly is doing well as usual but poor Tusonda his just gone down hill since the beginning of the season, hopefully we get to see him finish in the points tomorrow🤞🏻

    Predictions for tomorrow are P1 for Hamilton, P2 for Verstappen, P3 for Leclerc, P4 for Ricciardo and P5 for Norris😬, all eyes on to tomorrow👀🤞🏻

  • Barcelona F2 Testing

    This weekend we have had the F2 cars back on track at Barcelona for some more testing, once again it was split into morning and afternoon sessions with a total of 18 hours of track time across the weekend.

    Day 1- A bit of a foggy start to the morning session, with teams letting the drivers out for an install lap. Campos shot out on track as soon as it was clear, followed by MP Motorsport however MP didn’t get to set a competitive time as Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala stopped at turn 1 which brought out the first red flag of the weekend. Following the first red flag there was then another as Piastri stopped at turn 3 but he did manage to set a good time overall. After having two cars back in the garage safely Lungaard headed out onto the circuit and posted the quickest time of the morning setting a time of 1:29.606. The morning session finished with Lundgaard at the top with a 1:29.594, followed by Drugovich with a 1:29.772, then followed Vips with a 1:29.988.

    Once the afternoon session got the green light MP were the first team to get back onto the track, with both drivers getting a fast run out of the way. Verschoor charged his way to the top of the table after his fifth lap and then was backed up by his teammate Zendeli. A little while later Zendeli lost control of his MP and managed to tag the barrier… There was then another red flag shortly after this as Nissany lost control at Turn 9 and touched the wall too. Lundgaard was the one to bump Verschoor down to P2 with a lap time of 1:29.827, Verschoor ended up with a 1:30.165 and was very closely followed by Theo Pourchaire with a 1:30.167.

    Day 2- The morning session of Day 2 was the opportune time for some Qualifying simulations, with fresh hard tyres on, the field quickly went out to get a feel for the circuit with Zendeli setting an early pace of 1:29.440. He was shortly knocked down the order after Boschung went two tenths quicker. Half way through the session you saw the teams switching to the mediums however their runs were halted as Nissany spun at Turn 3 and found himself stuck in gravel which brung out a red flag. The session ended with Verschoor on top with a 1:28.280 then followed by Ralph Boschung with a 1:28.474 and then Felipe Drugovich with a 1:28.544.

    The afternoon session is more based on the longer runs to gather data, so to start the session off, Petecof got things under way with a 1:30.684. There were three disruptions in this session with Deledda spinning at turns 12 and 1, and Shwartzman stopped at turn 3. Once things got restarted again the Charouz Racing System pair went first and second with Beckamnn having a 1:29.384 and Samaia with a 1:29.510. Verschoor then made it to P3 with a 1:29.951 and that finished up the second day.

    Day 3- The last day of testing wasn’t as bright as the second day, which led to us seeing some rain at the end of the first session. The field headed out at the earliest opportunity with them switching to their final set of mediums. Their was a brief stoppage which we saw HWA Racelab’s spun at the first turn which brought out a red flag. Action soon resumed, with Drugovich taking control, he was the first the driver to break the 1m 28s barrier for the first time in Barcelona with a 1:27.945. Lundgaard was next to follow, he took a qualifying simulation however he couldn’t nail all three sectors, he managed P2 with a 1:28.285. Lundgaard wasn’t at P2 for long as Piastri came out on fresh medium tyres and set a 1:28.105.

    The afternoon session got underway and the long runs soon started, the HWA Racelab duo set the benchmark times leading with 1:30.346 and 1:32.183. There was a brief stoppage in the opening hour of the session as Lawson touched the wall at Turn 5. He managed to get back out there but then came to halt between turns 8 and 9 with 15 minutes to go. There was a third red flag of the afternoon for Verschoor who stopped at turn 7. The top 3 for the end of the session were Viscaal with a 1:30.280, Nannini with a 1:30.346 and Sato with a 1:30.943.

    In my opinion I believe HiTech, MP Motorsport are strong and so is Lundgaard, all of them seemed to be consistent over the weekend whilst doing simulations and tests. I’m looking forward to the next race weekend and its in Monaco on the 22nd of May.