Scuderia AlphaTauri Barcelona test 01- day 1 review 19.02.2020: BARCELONA TEST 01 – DAY 1 Circuit de Barcelona – Catalunya Driver: Daniil Kvyat - Car: AT01-02 Best time: 1:17.698 - Laps: 116 Daniil Kvyat (Car 26): “I think it was a pretty comfortable day, we didn’t encounter any big issue

BARCELONA TEST 01 – DAY 1
 
Circuit de Barcelona – Catalunya
Driver: Daniil Kvyat - Car: AT01-02
Best time: 1:17.698 - Laps: 116          
 


 
Daniil Kvyat (Car 26):


“I think it was a pretty comfortable day, we didn’t encounter any big issues and we ran reliably. The car felt like home pretty much straight away. We’ve completed the routine checks at the start of the day which made our morning a bit slow, but it’s necessary for the team at the first test.



Once that was done we were able to get some good laps in and understand the new car a bit better. We also worked on setup items, some of which you wouldn’t really try on a race weekend. It’s hard to comment too much on the progress made over winter because it’s the first time we properly run the car and you certainly need more time to find the sweet spot.”
 



Jody Egginton (Technical Director):


“Overall, we are satisfied with how today went. The morning session was primarily spent gathering aero data and conducting background tests before moving onto some basic setup work in order to begin to understand how the new car responds. This work continued into the afternoon with some longer runs, making good use of the C2 tyre and incorporating some pitstop practice for the mechanics toward the end of the day.




In summary, we are reasonably pleased with what we have learnt so far, but at the same time it’s very early in the test program and we still have much work to do in order to understand where we are with the new car and confirm our development priorities.”
 





Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director):


“It’s great to be back on track after a busy winter during which everyone involved in Honda’s F1 project worked very hard to prepare for this season in conjunction with our two teams. Therefore, it was gratifying to complete the first day with no real issues on both cars and it was a bit different to see the Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda livery for the first time on track. It’s the same for everyone but these two tests will be even more intensive than last year, as we have only six days instead of eight to prepare for Melbourne.




As usual, with a first day of testing, today was mainly about doing functionality checks for the RA620H Power Unit and also on the chassis side and ensuring everything worked correctly. Both our teams got through the scheduled programmes and we encountered a few minor issues which is what you expect during testing, especially on day 1. We got plenty of data which will now be analysed by the night shift here at the track and back in the factory. There’s much more work to be done over the rest of the test.”



- Fabiana Valenti, photos Red Bull