The Formula One cars made their first public return to the track on Monday and Tuesday for the Pirelli wet weather tyre test at the Paul Ricard Circuit in France. Only three of the current teams on the 2016 grid took part in the two day testing event controlled by Pirelli.
The Paul Ricard Circuit, the host of the French Grand Prix 14 times, now plays host to the wet weather tyre test. The last wet weather tyre test was in 2014 at the Circuito de Jerez. In 2014, the circuit was doused with track equipment carrying a water tank. Things were more high tech for this year’s wet weather tyre test, as a track sprinkler system was used to keep the track wet with 3 million liters of recycled rain water per day; the equivalent of 30 000 average bath tubs.
The conditions on the first day was heavy rain. The second day was bit drier and focused on the tyre performance on a drying track. Only Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren were willing to take part in this test for Pirelli. After each stint, the tyres were returned to the Pirelli engineers, where the tyre temperatures and pressures were measured and the tyres were visually inspected for damage and wear. At the end of day one, 285 laps had been completed and day two saw 374 more laps.
Red Bull ran Daniel Ricciardo on Monday and Daniil Kvyat took over on Tuesday. Kimi Räikkönen was Ferrari’s driver on day one, but the car was piloted by Sebastian Vettel on the second day. McLaren chose to run Stoffel Vandoorne in their car on both days, giving the Belgian more seat time in a Formula One car.
The second day saw faster times and more laps. Vettel was the fastest of the day and the overall test, completing 134 laps in the day. Kvyat was the second fastest of the day, with a time 0.1 seconds slower than the Ferrari after 113 laps. Vandoorne managed to complete considerably more laps than the previous day. He ran 127 laps in the day, but was still the slowest car of the day. A total of 659 laps were completed by the cars on both days.
With both Pirelli tyre tests out of the way, most of the 2016 cars will be making their debut on track for the first pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on the week beginning on February 22.
