Mercedes Benz

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Barcelona, Spain, Feb 18, 2011

Date - Friday February 18 2011
Driver - Jenson Button
Location - Circuit de Catalunya
Track Length - 4.655 kilometres
Weather - Damp in the morning from overnight rain. However, the track surface dried out by lunchtime, with sunny and clear skies for the remainder of the day.


Laps completed - 77
Kilometres covered - 358
Best laptime - 1m26.365s

Programme

The third test of the winter kicked off at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya this morning. Jenson Button continued development work on our new MP4-26 - he concludes his work on Saturday, with Lewis conducting running on Sunday and Monday.

Test team manager Indy Lall said: "We learnt alot from running the MP4-26 for the first time in Jerez last week, and, as a result, we've been able to set ourselves a very clearly defined programme for this week's Barcelona test.

"We'd planned to begin the test by conducting a number of aero-mapping runs, but these were slightly disrupted because the track was still damp from last night's rain. As a result, we'll repeat that test tomorrow morning, weather permitting."

"Still, we didn't lose too much track-time, and quickly switched our focus to a series of shorter runs towards the end of the morning. These were used to evaluate set-up and establish a general direction for this afternoon's long-run programme, which gave us a very solid understanding of the behaviour of the Pirelli tyres over the course of a stint.

"We also satisfactorily ran our drag reduction system for the first time in anger, and continued work with the F1 hybrid. It's been a very solid day and we are pleased with our progress."

Driver For Day Two - Jenson Button
Duration of Test - 4 days (February 18-21)

* Official report courtesy of VODAFONE MCLAREN MERCEDES *

Source of the photos >> F1 Fanatic

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