Barcelona day one: "A solid day with pleasing progress."

Date   Friday February 18 2011 Driver   Jenson Button Location   Circuit de Catalunya Track length   4.655km 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   358kmBest 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 a lot 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 the 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’re pleased with our progress.”

Driver for day two   Jenson Button Duration of test   Four days (February 18-21)