Jerez testing blog: Hamilton builds solid foundations

Friday February 8 - Hamilton building solid foundations
Jonathan Noble

Not perfect, but no disaster. That was the summary from both Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes as their first week together ended at Jerez on Friday.

Like almost everything that Hamilton has been involved in, there was drama - brake failure on day one and a crash into the barriers; speed - the sixth fastest time on Friday; and determination - a notebook full of jobs he wants Mercedes to do. Nobody would expect anything different.

Ever since Hamilton made the decision to join Mercedes, there has been plenty of chatter about a challenge to get to the front; of hard work and of fresh motivation to dig deeper than he has ever done before.

Yet for all the chatter, it was only in the past few days that reality was going to bite as he finally got a taste of his new W04.

And while rivals Red Bull, Lotus, Ferrari and McLaren all appeared to have kicked off 2013 with the expected step forwards in form, Mercedes was going to have a degree of greater uncertainty around it.

A brake failure caused Hamilton's crash on Wednesday © XPB

Was the team's end-of-season form last year a blip in its progress forward? Was it going to emerge as a dark horse at this first test now that it was producing the fruits of a technical restructuring from two years ago?

Or was a winter of politicking and its struggle for pace at the end of 2012 a sign of further difficulties to come that would leave Hamilton throwing his toys out of the pram?

By the end of day two at Jerez, the consensus was probably edging towards the latter scenario. The electrical problems that stopped Nico Rosberg's running after 14 laps on day one and the hydraulics failure that led to Hamilton's crash after 15 laps on day two threatened to provide the appearance of a team in big trouble.

Rosberg duly delivered the perfect tonic by completing 148 laps on day three. Hamilton adding 145 of his own to show that things are not as bad as had been feared, even if they are not as great as his die-hard fans may want at this stage.

But perhaps the best news for Mercedes was not about what was happening on-track, for these are just the first test days ahead of a long season. Instead, of greater interest was what was taking place in the garage.

Few doubt that if Hamilton and Mercedes are going to make a success of their partnership, then the key factor is going to be about maintaining the motivation of the former to keep digging deep.

That much has already been rammed home to Hamilton himself, according to team principal Ross Brawn.

"We have made it very clear to Lewis that he is part of the solution," said Brawn as testing came to a close on Friday.

"You have a choice in the team - you are either a problem or you are a solution. He is part of the solution to get us where we want to be. He knows that and he understands it and I think he is relishing it.

Hamilton seems to have adopted the Ross Brawn approach during the winter © XPB

"It is correct that he gives us his reference points and helps us understand what he must focus on.

"Some of them we knew already and that is why we restructured the aero group, so I welcome that approach. It needs to be constructive and it needs to be positive, but criticism of the right sort is always helpful as it drives you forward."

Hamilton's initial reaction to that prognosis looks pretty positive. He spoke earlier in the week of keeping a book of notes for everything he thinks about that can help him.

Brawn too says he has noticed behaviours that point to a man keen to make a difference. Hamilton was at the track at 7:30am on each day of the test; even when not driving; so he was ready to download and digest everything the team did.

And his quest to ensure that Mercedes is ready has even extended to how the car looked...

"He tells us what he thinks," said Brawn. "He is never short of detail in telling you what he thinks and, of course, you learn at what level you need to go to. He is interested in everything about the car; he is interested in the fact that the stickers might not be put properly on the bodywork.

"He has a very good eye for detail, so I think he will be a very involved member of the team, which is what we wanted."

What Mercedes really needs now is to keep moving forward though. For progress is not only essential for its race-winning prospects it will be essential for keeping Hamilton fired up for the task in hand.

The start has been encouraging. But Mercedes must not now run out of steam; that's something that goes well beyond getting the sponsors' logos straight too.

Thursday February 7 - Massa flies, but caution prevails
Edd Straw

Testing is simultaneously everything and nothing. These crucial 12 days in Spain will be critical in deciding whether team's 2013 seasons are successes or failures. But unlike a race weekend, there are no winners and losers at the end of it. And if there are, it won't become clear even to the teams for weeks yet.

After the initial flurry of excitement as the new cars hit the track for the first time on Tuesday, proceedings have now settled down into the usual rhythm. After the early small steps, the runs have become longer and the constant-speed tests on the main straight have become rarer as everyone settles down into the serious donkey work.

The question on everybody's mind (and much as they deny it, even those within the teams), is just who is in the box seat?

Anyone who claims to have the answer is either lying, misguided or plain wrong. And that's what's so frustrating for those who realise that headline times are meaningless and in-depth analysis of Jerez test runs are, at best, a vague guide. Right now, there is no answer, only the ghostly outline of a prediction based in sketchy data.

"Judgement?" mused a cheerful Nico Rosberg after his marathon stint. "I have no idea how fast we are but if I look now at what Ferrari has done, I'm not worried at all about their time."

Rosberg and Mercedes had a good day at last © XPB

Even Felipe Massa wasn't taking seriously his own position at the top of the timesheets. And quite rightly so, for while Ferrari has enjoyed a far better start to pre-season testing than it did this time last year, top spot today is, in itself, meaningless.

Even the most optimistic flag-waving Scuderia fan would have to concede that being almost nine tenths of a second faster than the rest means nothing more than Ferrari is simply in the game.

A step forward on 2012, certainly, but no reason to start making arrangements for a victory parade in Maranello in late November. It might be that this is Ferrari's year, but there's no way of knowing it today.

Massa himself remains far more impressed with Jenson Button's fastest time of the first day. He described the McLaren man's lap, which was over a second shy if today's benchmark, as "incredible" given that it had been set on hard rubber on a far greener track.

He's absolutely right to make that point, but don't be fooled into thinking that this guarantees McLaren a one-two in Melbourne.

"It's just the first week of testing and, to be honest, I'm not sure if there are many very, very quick cars on the track," said Massa. "I don't know really if we are in this position for the first race..."

Make no mistake, Massa will be fighting a private mental battle between getting excited about the potential of the new car and knowing that it would be a mistake to do so. This is the fate of the driver in pre-season testing. Some feel that they have a seriously good shot, but know that they have to do everything they can to suppress that feeling.

Others know that they are struggling, but will use the uncertainty to stave off acceptance of the inevitable, long, hard season that stretches out ahead of them. Few and far between are the days when, as Button enjoyed in 2009, you jump in a car at the first test and know that you have a title-winner on your hands.

Massa: Very cautious despite time © XPB

But what you can allow yourself is the feeling that things might just be going better than they were this time last year. Certainly, Massa was enjoying making others raise their eyebrows about his time rather than looking at his car and realising that it wasn't in the game as he was 12 months ago. Doubly so, given that the F138 was responding well, unlike its predecessor at this stage.

"I think many people are thinking the same about me now," said Massa of how what some might see as his "impressive" time might be interpreted. "But we improved the car on these days. In some areas I found some areas where I found an improvement in grip and driving and everything.

"It was a good lap that I did, but I can't be sure exactly what we are going to have at the start of the championship. I 100 per cent have my feet on the ground."

Testing is called testing for a reason. And the best way to pass that test is to keep your head down and make sure you drag every last fraction of a second of potential out of the machinery.

Over-confidence in February is a recipe for disaster. That's why you'll read so many quotes echoing the Massa one above between now and Melbourne.

Wednesday February 6 - Lotus comes out fighting
Glenn Freeman

Formula 1 teams do their best to play down most things in public. They're hopeful, not confident, before races. New cars are usually "evolution, not revolution", and there are constant attempts to pour cold water on anything potentially exciting.

There's been plenty of that so far this week at Jerez. Mark Webber described the Red Bull RB9 as "a Brazil [2012] car" with "some front wing stuff going on", while others have been happy to say that this week is only about systems checks and data collection before the proper work starts when the teams descend on Barcelona for tests two and three.

But at Lotus, the impression is that the Enstone squad, which got back to winning ways with Kimi Raikkonen in 2012, has wanted to come out the blocks like a rocket.

Forget Romain Grosjean's time for a moment. This is not about the pace he has shown, but the way Lotus has gone about the test.

As soon as Jenson Button set an apparently eye-catching time on Tuesday, Grosjean talked of it being nice that Lotus had a time like that to work towards over the course of the week. Hardly the usual testing line of 'we don't look at what anyone else is doing'.

Lotus was piling on the upgrades on day two © LAT

Also, the E21 wasn't quite ready when the track opened for the first day of testing. The reason? Last-minute updates were being bolted onto the car. While others were heading out for their shakedown runs, Lotus wanted its car in the best specification possible from the moment its stepped nose first edged out of garage.

Technical directors certainly don't like to get drawn in to sounding too upbeat in the early stages of pre-season. Yet James Allison freely admitted he was "quite chipper" about how things have started, later adding "there is no reason why this team should not compete at the front".

After topping the times on Wednesday, Grosjean said that his positive comments from day one had in fact been "quite cautious" and that he was now satisfied that the E21 was "a little bit better in all the areas". Positivity is oozing from the black and gold area of the paddock.

"There's nothing crazy about that time," Grosjean said after setting his 1m18.218s lap. "We are just working and doing our own business. It doesn't mean much, today we just stayed on our plan."

On Wednesday, that plan involved putting the soft and medium compound tyres through their paces. Grosjean did several short runs on the soft, repeatedly ducking under the 1m19s barrier that nobody else breached all day.

Grosjean was pushing hard on track © XPB

Grosjean admitted that his time had surprised him, much like Button's had the day before. But, perhaps tellingly, he revealed that he had been pushing - something that is rarely admitted in testing.

"We tried hard on the medium and soft tyres and saw a good difference between them, and we made them work well," he said.

If evaluating the new Pirelli tyre compounds on a series of short runs is on your agenda, then the driver is going to have to push hard to get accurate results. The fact that Lotus has dived straight into that part of its test programme looks, from the outside, like a signal of intent.

Webber, who was also quite positive about his own day of work in the Red Bull, offered a useful caveat that will surely be lurking in the back of Lotus minds, and should not be forgotten for the rest of this week.

Hamilton had time to watch his rivals, and was impressed by the Lotus © LAT

"There are a lot of quick cars out there, and we're mindful of that," he said. "[But] last year we had some very quick cars here in Jerez and they didn't do much in the championship, so let's see."

For those who would rather hear something positive ahead of Kimi Raikkonen's debut in the car on Thursday, Lewis Hamilton offered a snippet after spending most of the day on the sidelines following his crash in the morning.

"Out the back of the hospitality I watched some other cars coming past," he said. "Some cars looked nice; the Red Bull looked nice as always.

"The Lotus looks real nice."

Of course, it could just be that Lotus is being more honest than everyone else in the pitlane, and simply hasn't seen the point in keeping its cards close to its chest. So perhaps what we've seen so far really is nothing special.

If that's the case, then all we can do is appreciate a team that has been a little more forthcoming with what it's been up to so far, because that is a rarity at this time of year.

Tuesday 5 February - McLaren breaks then flies
Sam Tremayne

Three laps into Formula 1's first test of 2013, McLaren hit issues. Three laps from the end, it was flying.

The recurrence of a fuel pump failure had threatened to derail McLaren's opening day at Jerez. It certainly deprived Button of mileage, restricting him to just three installation laps in the entire morning. For the first few hours, he was a spectator.

But then came a three-lap salvo that seemed to have everyone scratching their heads, Button included.

It wasn't just the outright lap time that impressed, even if a 1m18.861s was well clear of anyone else along the pitlane; the average was equally strong, coming in at 1m19.669s - itself faster than any other driver managed.

"We didn't do that many laps in the morning and the afternoon, but yeah, [Button's] is a good lap," came the verdict from early pacesetter Romain Grosjean. "We know the McLaren is going to be one of the fastest cars so it's good to have it there at the front and to see what we can do to get there."

Mark Webber looked set to top the times, until Button turned up © XPB

"It's strong, yeah, it's a strong lap time," was Mark Webber's verdict. "I don't know what tyre he was on or what was going on, but that is certainly not a slow lap around here. 1m18.8s at Jerez, on Pirellis, is a pretty handy time..."

Button, incidentally shod on the Pirelli hard compound when he made his move, admitted he too was surprised at the speed. His tongue in cheek answer was to point to chicane trickery or a permanent use of DRS, but there was a serious verdict too.

"There's nothing that stands out as something we need to work on," he explained. "For a first day it felt good - maybe not 2009 good, but comfortable."

For all the enthusiasm, there was also caution, and not solely as a result of the normal caveats of testing meaning little. In the juxtaposition of outright pace and reliability woes, there was more than just a faint echo of 2012.

Then, McLaren had arguably the fastest car over the season, but was undone by reliability issues. It was telling that Martin Whitmarsh spoke of his frustration at the recurrence of a fuel pump failure, particularly when the part was made anew for the forthcoming campaign.

Button rejoins the track © XPB

Button played down fears that reliability had still not been sorted, making the valid point that it was better to encounter such issues early on and with plenty of time to rectify them.

"It's been a funny mix," he reflected. "The first day of testing there is so much excitement within the team, but for us it was very shortlived due to the fuel pump issue. It's never what you want at the start of a test, but I guess it is better to have it at the start rather than the end so we can solve the issue.

"I think last year our main weakness was reliability, and also at the start of the year we had some issues with pitstops and maybe getting a bit lost in the middle. There are many things we need to improve on.

"Today was one of those things; it was testing, we weren't the only ones to have issues. If you go through the whole of testing with no issues at all sometimes that's more scary than having issues, because you get to the first race and that's when something goes wrong."

As it was McLaren did rectify the issue and return to the track in some style. Able to switch the tyres on from the first lap - Button's fastest effort was also the first of his three-lap run - he made quick headway up the timesheets.

For all the impact his benchmark time had, Button still had a warning for the rest of the field - and also for his McLaren squad.

"I don't know how I did that time, but today still hasn't been the perfect day with the issues this morning," he said. "There is still a lot of work to do before we get this car in a position where we are happy with it.

Monday February 4 - Hamilton's new horizons
Glenn Freeman

Lewis Hamilton got his first laps behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car that wasn't a McLaren on Monday. OK, it was only for filming purposes (and therefore on demo tyres), but it was a significant occasion - for the 2013 season and in his career.

It was alarming when his first taste of the Mercedes F1 W04 ended with it grinding to a halt at the first corner, but Hamilton explained that it was simply the result of the team deliberately running the car out of fuel. A necessary experiment, and better to do it now rather than once this week's first pre-season test is underway.

After the playing down of expectations that both Hamilton and team-mate Nico Rosberg had delivered when the car was launched earlier in the day, everyone was keen to hear the 2008 world champion's first impressions.

He gave AUTOSPORT's Jonathan Noble very little to work with though, saying "yes", he had got an idea about the car, and he was "not particularly" keen to share it.

Hamilton was evasive, but clearly buoyant © LAT

But as he tried to steer the conversation away from that topic (later he would tell us that he is trying to get a paddock pass from Bernie Ecclestone for his new dog), Hamilton couldn't stop grinning.

"I do feel positive," he smiled. "I'm not disappointed at all."

That was as far as it went on the car front, but Hamilton did elaborate on why he was smiling so much.

"I'm just happier," he said. "I can't really explain it. Happy that I've got a new challenge, happy that I've got a fresh start.

"I've got this excitement - I don't know if the car's going to be good or bad, but with a lot of hard work and perseverance we can get there. And I'm happy about that."

He went on with that theme. In total he used the word 'happy' or a variant of it eight times in one answer.

The feedback on the car may have been light (he even suggested he won't be giving the team any tips based on the handful of laps he did), but Hamilton did give some insight into the minor details that make up a big part of switching teams in modern Formula 1. And for a driver who has spent his entire career up to this point at one team, there is a lot for him to get used to.

New overalls are among the things Hamilton must adjust to © XPB

"It's a bit like starting all over again," he said. "On this car I think I've got double the amount of buttons and switches that I had on my previous one. I've already got rid of quite a few, but I still have more than I had before.

"At the moment I've got to get used to all of that, and all the procedures they [the team] have, the things they are talking about, the different terminology they use. That's what I'm focusing on."

'They' was a word Hamilton used more than 'happy' over the course of the day. There was the occasional 'we', but for the most part he gave the impression that in his eyes, Mercedes is still 'they'. If that is the case, it's understandable.

After all, this is first Formula 1 test Hamilton has arrived at and not had to head to the McLaren trucks.

He talked of it feeling strange driving past McLaren when he arrived on Sunday night, and not knowing where Mercedes would be parked. And he admitted that the fact he was no longer a McLaren driver really hit him when he and Rosberg pulled back the covers on the Mercedes F1 W04, rather than Woking's MP4-28.

Perhaps that was the beginning of the process that will result in Hamilton truly feeling at home in his new team.