Jerez day 4 – Hamilton and Mclaren on top; Force India second

Posted by Harry on February 15th, 2010 | No Comments

Briton Lewis Hamilton clocked the fastest time on Saturday with Force India’s Adrian Sutil making a surprise by finishing with the second fastest time. Hamilton put up a time of 1:19.533s which was over 0.6 seconds faster than Sutil in the VJM 03. Sutil racked up lots of testing miles in the VJM 03 and completed more than 1200km. “Set-up wise, we were pretty good already and the car balance is not so far away,” said the German. “We also tried a couple of longer runs and saving the tyres seems to be the key point as we could set some quick times on the early laps but then the tyres dropped off towards the end of the runs. We weren’t going for a time, just trying to get as much information as possible at this stage to feed back into the programme for next week.”

Rubens Barrichello in the Williams managed to take the 3rd fastest time. They worked on set-up and systems before a gearbox problem ended their test. Kubica ended up with the 4th best time after Renault reported improvements in the performance and driveability of the R30. F1 veteran Michael Schumacher came 5th after he returned to the cockpit.

Felipe Massa was again on duty for Ferrari, completing a long run in the morning and then concentrating on tyre comparison work in the afternoon. The Brazilian was seventh quickest in the F10. Testing resumes at Jerez this week, with another four-day session commencing on Wednesday February 17. For detailed analysis, visit www.f1.com.

Unofficial Saturday times from Jerez:
1. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 1:19.583, 113 Laps
2. Adrian Sutil, Force India, 1:20.180, 84 Laps
3. Rubens Barrichello, Williams, 1:20.341, 90 Laps
4. Robert Kubica, Renault, 1:20.358, 86 Laps
5. Michael Schumacher, Mercedes GP, 1:20.613, 84 Laps
6. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull, 1:21.203, 90 Laps
7. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 1:21.486, 160 Laps
8. Pedro de la Rosa, BMW Sauber, 1:22.134, 105 Laps
9. Lucas di Grassi, Virgin, 1:22.912, 63 Laps
10. Jaime Alguersuari, Toro Rosso, 1:24.072, 98 Laps