Jerez day 3: Many miles for Toro Rosso

Published on 04 February 2015 by Mike Motilall

Tuesday Carlos Sainz made up for an ill-fated Sunday. The Spaniard failed to achieve more than 46 laps earlier this week, but the team enabled him to do an incredible 137 laps on his second outing. These are precious miles for the team from Faenza, the same squad for which the Dutchman Max Verstappen is also a driver.

Today saw Sainz putting down his fastest lap in 1:23.187, being even faster than Verstappen on Monday. Max is due for action again Wednesday on the last day of testing on the track of Circuito de Jerez.

However, Sainz is not the man credited with the most laps; that honour goes to Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes. The German laps the track an astounding 151 times. But not without issues: his car stops during the afternoon when his engine dies, creating a red-flag situation. Apart from that the team has an almost flawless test day.

The team from McLaren wish they could say the same. Starting the test day promising, doing some 32 laps, around lunchtime the Honda engine starts causing trouble again. This time they lose pressure from the cooling system, ending the test day prematurely. The team is working on a solution for the
issue and will resume the tests Wednesday. Fernando Alonso, who discovered the problem during his outlap, is not getting much lap time.

The fastest driver of the day is Felipe Nasr in the Sauber. He clocks the fastest time in 1:21.545 and does a total of 109 laps. It has to be said that Nasr did his top time on a set of soft compound Pirelli tires. For Sauber also the test day is not without hick ups. In the early session the Brazilian triggers a code red when he spins in turn nine. Luckily for him and the team there is little damage to his car.

A problem in the telemetry sees Pastor Maldonado get on the track rather late. Even so, he does 96 laps and his fastest time is just slightly over a second slower than Nasr’s top time. His time is also done on a soft set of tires.

Kimi Raikkonen in the Ferrari and Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull bring about some sensation on the track by driving close to each other lap after lap. Had they wanted to create more space, it would have been easy for either of them to do so, but the fact that they did not, illustrates that the two drivers value their mutual “race”. Ricciardo is forced to stay inside for the larger part of the morning due to an engine change. The Fin Raikkonen again shows the speed and reliability of the Ferrari, something  Sebastian Vettel did yesterday and the day before. The Ferrari keeps doing this on the medium compound tires.

Felipe Massa is driving the Williams FW37 for the first time today. In the morning the Brazilian does not get much drive time, but makes up for it in the afternoon. He also does a lot of test starting. The session ends prematurely: one minute before time, Maldonado’s Lotus stops on track between turns five and six. The red flag is quickly followed by the checkered one.

Jerez day 3, Tuesday 3 February

1  Felipe Nasr        Sauber        1m21.545s          -         (108) 
2  Kimi Raikkonen     Ferrari       1m21.750s          +0.205s   (92) 
3  Nico Rosberg       Mercedes      1m21.982s          +0.437s   (151) 
4  Felipe Massa       Williams      1m22.276s          +0.731s   (71) 
5  Pastor Maldonado   Lotus         1m22.713s          +1.168s   (96) 
6  Carlos Sainz       Toro Rosso    1m23.187s          +1.642s   (136) 
7  Daniel Ricciardo   Red Bull      1m23.901s          +2.356s   (48) 
8  Fernando Alonso    McLaren       1m35.553s          +14.008s  (32)

Via Twitter and Facebook we'll keep you updated throughout the test followed by a full report on Verstappen.nl at the end of the day’s action. You can find the schedule for the Jerez test here. Don't forget to check out our exclusive photo album.