Honda F1 2020 Barcelona F1 Test 2 – Day 1 26.02.2020: Both Aston Martin Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri recovered from issues in the morning to complete more encouraging running at the start of the second pre-season test.

Both Aston Martin Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri recovered from issues in the morning to complete more encouraging running at the start of the second pre-season test.
 


Wednesday morning got off to a slow start as both teams spotted problems on their installation laps, with Alex being confined to the garage with a suspension issue and Pierre unable to run while AlphaTauri worked on a water pipe. Coincidentally, both teams were able to fire-up again at identical times before midday and carried out a solid final hour before the lunch break.



Pierre and Alex finished fifth and sixth after 25 and 29 laps respectively, before handing over to their team-mates. The afternoon was much more productive as Max amassed 84 laps and posted the second fastest time on the C3 compound. Daniil completed 61 laps and went fourth fastest overall - also on C3 tyres - to ensure all four Honda-powered cars ended the day in the top six.
 


 
 
Toyoharu Tanabe
Technical Director, Honda Racing F1   



“After last week’s work here in Barcelona, we analysed all the data from both teams and so we started this second test reflecting what we learned from that. Over these three days, we are continuing with function checks, as well as working on optimising the settings.



We are now in a phase of fine tuning, in preparation for the season opener in Melbourne. Both our cars had to spend a while in the garage this morning and in the afternoon we focused on recovering from that delay. Despite that, everything seems to be progressing smoothly on the PU front.”
 
 


Max Verstappen
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing    Best time: 1:17.347
Laps: 84


“Today I tried the new Pirelli tyre compound, but overall we were trying lots of things, learning how the car reacts under various circumstances, so when we reach Australia, we’ll know what to expect. We won’t know how good we are until we get to Melbourne because testing isn’t about setting lap times but trying new and different things.



I stopped on track just before the end of the session but we’re not concerned and overall it was a positive day. We have a lot of grip but so do the other cars so let’s see what happens when we go racing.”
 
 


Alexander Albon
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing    Best time: 1:17.550
Laps: 29


“We had a small issue with the suspension and lost a bit of time so this morning was a little frustrating – but we did so many laps last week we’re still on a good footing and haven’t really fallen behind our plan. Even though we didn’t get as many laps as expected, the car was feeling pretty good and already an improvement on how it was last week.



Obviously, this week there will be more of a focus on performance, and we’ve taken some steps in the right direction. We’re trying to get the car into the best window. It’s already in a good place but there are little pieces of the puzzle we’re trying to fit together throughout the test, getting us ready for Melbourne.”
 


 
Pierre Gasly
Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda    Best time: 1:17.540
Laps: 25


“We had a little issue this morning which compromised our session. For sure it wasn’t ideal as we had planned more laps and we lost some mileage, but these things happen, and we recovered as much as we could in the final hour. It was an intense end to the session as we explored different setup directions for the car with the little time we had. There were a couple of interesting things which Daniil continued working on this afternoon.



 We’ll try to maximize every opportunity we have left on track to learn more about the car, I feel there’s a lot more to come, but everyone has the same amount of track time so we need to be as efficient as possible.”
 
 
Daniil Kvyat
Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda    Best time: 1:17.456
Laps: 61


“I think it was a productive half-day of testing for me. When it’s a new car you always get interesting results, so I was able to understand it better every run I did. We continued with more setup changes you wouldn’t normally have time for to try in free practice, to be able to see how the car reacts.





We’re not looking for pure performance yet, we’re looking to fine-tune the balance and see how the changes behave in different corners; I think we can be happy with all of the data we gathered. We needed to tick as many boxes as possible today, especially now that testing is quite limited this year and I’ve only got one day in the car left.”





 
 
Honda Motor Co. photos Red Bull