F1 Bahrain test: Stroll and Latifi in action
RAIN COMPRIMISED TESTING YESTERDAY FOR STROLL WHO SHARED DUTIES WITH SERGIO PEREZ TODAY. LATIFI’S FIRST DAY AT THE WHEEL OF THE WILLIAMS.
Yesterday’s first day had a couple of rain storm passing by the Bahrain circuit. Teams had today to try to complete their testing program.
Everyone running their own program makes it hard to compare la times, keeping in mind as well the tire choices.
Just looking at today, Lance Stroll drove 35 laps before handing the car over to Sergio Perez and clocked a time of 1:30.049s. While Sergio Perez ran 60 laps with a best time of 1:29.095s.
Tom McCullough, Performance Engineering Director summarized the last two days for SportPesa Racing Point: “Over the last couple of days we have gradually worked our way through a comprehensive job list. The rain yesterday deprived us of track time, but we still managed to collect valuable aero data in the morning with various instrumentation fitted to the RP19. We continued the aero programme today with Lance before moving our focus to performance and tyre work. Track conditions have been much better today – without the sandy and rainy conditions we experienced on Tuesday – and we made the most of the afternoon to run four different tyre compounds with Sergio. We rounded off the test with a series of long runs. The timing of this test has been useful because it’s given us the opportunity to get a better understanding of the new parts we introduced over the last two events and we will put that learning to good use in China.”
It was also the first day at the wheel of the Williams FW42 for Nicolas Latifi who ran quite an extensive program today. He completed 100 laps and set a best time at 1:32.198s. Different conditions then of the weekend although for the sake of comparing the Q1 lap time of George Russell at 1:31.759s and being at the wheel for the first time, it is quite respectable.
Dave Robson, Williams’ Senior Race Engineer, commented on Latifi’s day: “Nicholas has had his first day of running in the FW42 and has done an excellent job. He started with some data gathering runs early in the morning whilst we also got him comfortable in the car, and with the control systems. By mid-morning we were able to run a performance test programme using a series of new C2 tyres, which was the Option compound during the race weekend. After lunch we completed some more data gathering runs whilst the track was at its hottest before moving onto a further pair of engineering programmes using the softer C3 and C4 compounds in the late part of the afternoon. Throughout the day Nicholas has driven extremely well, without error and has provided valuable feedback on the car’s performance.”
As Latifi said, he came well prepared fo this day: “Today was a really good day which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was originally supposed to drive the car during the pre-season test in Barcelona, so this was my first run with the team on track, so I was very excited to finally get the chance. I did a lot of preparation in the simulator prior to this so I felt very well prepared and knew what to expect from the car. When I was finally able to start pushing I felt that I quickly got up to speed. For me everything went well, and I was very happy to get my first experience in the FW42.”
Image: SportPesa Racing Point
