A decent day with Daniil Kvyat at the wheel of the RB11 in Barcelona

Formula One’s final pre-season test of 2015 got underway in Barcelona today, with Daniil Kvyat at the wheel of the RB11. The day’s running started positively as the team embarked on improving the performance of the car but late morning rain then interrupted proceedings.

A mechanical issue in the afternoon then meant the team could not pursue the run plan it had mapped out and Dany was switched to a series of shorter runs, with the Russian getting through 75 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya.

Driver: Daniil Kvyat
Car: RB11
Laps: 75
Best time: 1:25.947
Circuit length: 4.655km
Fastest Lap: F. Massa (1:23.500)

“We more or less had a decent day,” said Dany. “We were able to get quite a lot done and hopefully we’ll get more done tomorrow. These last couple of days are really important in terms of understanding where we are, understanding the engine and chassis, so it’s good to get as much running as possible. It felt fine today. There’s always room for improvement though so we’ll be pushing to find that.”

Head of Race Engineering Guillaume Rocquelin added: “Not a perfect start to this final test. After we sorted a small problem Dany had on the install lap, we ran well in the morning and got through some shorter runs, turning the car round quickly in the garage after set-up changes and trying to build up some performance. However, then the rain came and that set everything back a bit. In the afternoon we were planning on a long run but about 10 laps into his stint, we noticed a problem on the car and Dany came back to the garage. We felt it would be better to wait for some new parts overnight so we went back to shorter runs in the late afternoon and we’ll probably do the same first thing tomorrow morning until the parts are onboard.”

Infiniti Red Bull Racing