Bulls Make Marathon Charge

The Team charged into 2020 with Max and Alex getting through 471 laps at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya during the first pre-season test of the year.

Alex On Track For Testing

Across three days of almost faultless running the RB16 clocked up more than 2,100 km leaving Head of Race Engineering Guillaume ‘Rocky’ Rocquelin branding the test “one of the most satisfying and successful” the Team has enjoyed in recent years.

Max got the marathon underway on Wednesday by topping the mileage chart for day one, with the Dutch driver racking up 168 laps, the most of any single driver, while a trouble-free first day of action for the RB16 resulted in the day’s fourth quickest time thanks to a lap of 1:17.516 set with a little over an hour left in the session.

And afterwards Max professed himself happy with long day’s work and how the RB16 responded. “It’s always important to do as many laps as possible and today was a really good example of how you should do it, so I’m very happy. The reliability has been good so far, so now we just have to do a lot more laps, test all the new parts and see where we can improve it further. Hopefully we’ll have done enough!”

We have improved the car in the areas we wanted to over the winter and the car feels faster everywhere.

Elsewhere on day one, defending world champion Lewis Hamilton went quickest, with the Briton beating Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas by three tenths of a second, while Racing Point’s Sergio Pérez was third fastest ahead of Max. It was productive day all around, with every one of the grid’s 10 teams breaking the 100-lap mark, although only the Mercedes duo combined were able to top Max’s efforts.

With Max in the cockpit for the RB16’s track debut at Silverstone last week and on day one of the test, Alex had to wait a while for his first taste of the new car, but on Thursday his moment arrived and it didn’t disappoint, event though the Thai driver was forced to miss out on some track time when data from the PU prompted the Team to make precautionary engine change.

Capturing Week One Of Testing

Max Putting The RB16 Through Its Paces

Max Climbs Into His RB16

His Face Said It All...

Alex During Debrief At Testing

It Was Alex's First Preseason Test With The Team

Max Was Loving Being Back On The Track

With 471 Laps Completed The Drivers Know More About This Year's Machine

And That's The End Of Week One's Testing

In the end, a thorough examination of the engine revealed no issues and the original PU would be back in the car on the final day.

The delay didn’t unduly upset Alex’s day, however, and on his first day at wheel of the RB16 he was able to get through 134 laps of the Barcelona track.

“After Max’s running we carried on the work today and tried a few things that he tried,” he said. “Comments wise we were very similar which is always positive. Over the winter we have addressed some of the areas where we felt we were struggling and I felt pretty comfortable in the car straight away.”

While the Team concentrated on the harder end of the spectrum of Pirelli compounds, Alex’s best effort on C2 tyres yielded P4 on the timesheet on a day when top spot went to Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Räikkönen. The Finn used the softest C5 compound to post a time of 1:17.091, with Pérez taking second place ahead of Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo. Räikkönen also brought out the test’s first red flag when he stopped on track with 17 laps remaining in the session.

At the end of two intensely busy days, Rocquelin admitted that the reduced number of test days and the high lap count had led to a change from normal Team testing procedure for the final day. “We also have a change to our usual plan tomorrow in that due to the large amount of laps being run and the compressed nature of these tests, we’ll be splitting driver duties. Max will be out in the morning and Alex in the afternoon. All going to plan, it will be another extremely busy day and hopefully a productive one.”

Max Verstappen On Track At Testing

And so it proved. In the morning a minor issue with Max’s car was rapidly solved and the Dutchman was able to complete a full race simulation over his 86 laps. The Team had a similar run plan in place for Alex in the afternoon, but a sequence of red flags disrupted the session. However, despite the delays, Alex was able to add another 83 laps to the Team’s total before the chequered flag was waved on a day that saw Mercedes Valtteri Bottas run fastest with a time of 1:15.732 set on the C5 compound.

And after their final runs of the week, both drivers emerged from the car encouraged by what they’d experienced.

“We got another good amount of laps today and for this first week of testing that’s really important as we try to understand the new car.” Max said. “We’re not chasing lap time; it’s not about that. It’s about scanning and testing everything on the car, making sure everything works well and that it’s reliable. It’s been really positive and the car has felt good all week.”

Alex, meanwhile, added that he’d felt improvements throughout the week. “The car feels good and each time we went out it felt better and better. It’s all about gaining experience of the car, learning what we can do with it and getting ready for Melbourne. The main areas we needed to work on have definitely improved. I think we’re looking strong and compared to last year we’ve made a good step forward.”

And for Head of Race Engineering Rocquelin the test leaves the Team well prepared ahead of the crucial final three days of testing next week.

“It’s been a very successful test for the whole Team and in my opinion one of the most satisfying first weeks of pre-season testing we’ve had in some time. We’re in good shape and we’ve now got a very good platform heading into the second week where we’ll hopefully add some more performance.”