Following its launch this morning at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia, Red Bull Racing’s RB7 completed 93 laps today, on its first day of testing.

The teams used the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the new cars and it was the first chance the teams had had to use the Pirelli tyres since the Abu Dhabi test at the end of the 2010 season.

Red Bull Racing

Head of Race Engineering, Ian Morgan

“We had a very good shakedown with the RB7 today and completed everything we aimed to on day one. It’s an encouraging start to what we hope will be a successful season for the RB7.”

Sebastian Vettel

“It was good today and I felt comfortable in the car, I enjoyed it. It was day one for most of us and there’s a long way to go with testing ahead of the season and a very long racing season after that – with 20 races – so things can change! We’ve only made the first step today, but we had a reliable day and can be very proud of what we have achieved so far.”

Force India F1 Team

Nico Hülkenberg

“Generally a very productive and promising first day with the team. The main goal was principally for me to get used to the team, the car and the new Pirelli tyres and my impressions of all were pretty positive. It was great to be back in an F1 car and I got back up to speed quicker than I thought. Programme-wise I worked through the different set-ups on the car and was able to complete a lot of laps, which gave me a good first understanding of how the Pirelli tyres worked as I was not able to do any running at the tyre test last year. I really enjoyed the day and am looking forward to working with the team over the coming weeks as we prepare for the start of the season.”

Paul di Resta

“A short outing for me today, but good to get back in the car and out on track again after a couple of months off. And great to be back in the team environment knowing that this is all building up to the start of my first season in F1. We completed just under 30 laps to get ready for the full day tomorrow. I think we’re in good shape to get through the full programme and get the information we need to feed into the development of the new car.”

Dominic Harlow, circuit engineering director

“Our strategy for this test was to use the VJM3 to gain our drivers some early season mileage and collect as much data on the Pirelli tyres as possible. Overall we achieved our objectives today, looking at the three compounds available here and with both Nico and Paul driving the car. Fortunately the weather for the coming two days is forecast to remain fairly good and we look forward to continuing with our work over the remaining two days.”

Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes

“The car we ran today ought to allow us to get the right loadings on the Pirellis to understand how they behave. The tyres have changed since we last ran them in Abu Dhabi last year, and they’ll change again before the start of the season. Today was about trying to understand the tyres – we established a good baseline and then did some long runs. Happily, the wear issues we experienced in Abu Dhabi have definitely improved; we saw better wear patterns and fewer problems with the tyres. It’s useful to understand how the tyres go off, and how the balance changes once they do. The Medium seems to last the longest and the Super-soft the shortest, but that’s exactly what you want from a tyre – and it should lead to different strategies once we start racing.”

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro

Fernando Alonso

“After so many weeks of waiting I had a great desire to return to the car. It’s always a great feeling to be the first to drive a new car and I’m honoured that this was my job. I’m satisfied with how this first day has gone, in particular regarding reliability. We haven’t had any kind of problem – just as we haven’t had any in the factory before arriving here. We don’t have a huge amount of sets of tyres available and there is significant tyre wear. That probably also stems from the track conditions that were not at their best after the rain of recent days. But we are all in the same situation and we just have to work to adapt in the best way. It’s impossible to have an idea of how the different teams line up after just a few hundred kilometres and I don’t think that we will have a clear picture before the Bahrain Grand Prix. I remember that last year at the last test in Barcelona we were sixth fastest with Sauber and Force India ahead of us. At Sakhir we lapped them. I think that this question mark will remain right up to the first race.”

Sauber F1 Team

James Key, Technical Director

“It was a busy day, with all the little problems you have to look into at this time of the year when testing begins with a brand new car. The important and good thing is we had absolutely no major issues and the car was running well. We used the morning for several system checks and some initial set up work. We only used the KERS and the rear wing activation in the afternoon. Tyre degradation was quite high and we will have to keep an eye on that for the remainder of the test. Of course there is plenty of work to do, but we are fine with what we have learned and achieved so far today.”

Kamui Kobayashi

“It was a bit of a trouble shooting day, as we had to check all the various new systems and sort things out. But that is no problem, as it is something you just have to go through. However, due to the work with the new systems we had no time for proper performance runs. The grip of the new tyres dropped off quite quickly. This is something you can improve with set up work, but for the reasons mentioned we did not really have time for that. Anyway we will continue to learn.”

Virgin Racing

Jerome D’Ambrosio

“Today was an excellent day and I was really looking forward to driving the car for the first time as a Formula One driver. It really is an amazing feeling and I’m really excited for the season ahead. I think today was a good start. I’m getting used to the Pirelli tyres and working really well with the team, who are doing a great job. Now I can’t wait for my next day in the car, which will be in Jerez and driving the new MVR-02 car.”

John Booth, Team Principal

“It’s great to be back. We are really looking forward to our second season in Formula 1. Jerome did a very good job today in the car and I’m really pleased with how the team is working. We have started out on the right note but there is still a lot to be done. We are heading in the right direction and I’m very pleased with the way things are progressing at this very early stage.”

Renault F1 Team

Vitaly Petrov

“It’s great to come back for the new season and try the R31 for the first time. It was not the perfect day because we had some mechanical problems and we lost a little bit of time, so we did not do many laps. But we did manage to check a lot of systems on the car, which was important for us and it looks like everything is working well. I tried KERS for the first time and it will take me a while to get used to it because it’s clear the driver will be quite busy in the cockpit this year. I also tried out the Pirellis, but it was difficult for me to learn too much because we were not pushing too hard and we mostly did in and out laps.”

Eric Boullier

“It’s obviously exciting to be back at the track after a long winter and to see the R31 complete its first few laps. It’s still very early days and the car did not run a lot today, so there was a little bit of frustration for Vitaly because he would have liked to get more miles under his belt. But this is to be expected at the first test, which is basically more of a shakedown for the car and the time to check reliability to make sure everything is working as we expected. For the remaining two days our focus will be on validating the systems and collecting data so that we can get down to performance work at the remaining tests.”

James Allison

“Some mechanical niggles with the car meant that we spent more time in the garage today that we would have liked. As a consequence our day became more of a shakedown of all the new systems than an opportunity to explore performance. We learned that the car runs comfortably within our design temperature limits and we gained some useful running on both the new DCS rear wing and the KERS. The next days of testing should bring us a better idea of the performance of the car.”

Alan Permane’s technical programme notes

•We had KERS fitted today and, although we did not run it a great deal the energy recovery and releasing was working fine.
•Another new aspect you have to assess with a new car is the cooling around the engine and gearbox, which is very tightly packaged on the R31.The checks we did today suggest everything is okay with this.
•Our running was limited today as we were held up with a brake line leak. Although it’s a simple problem, it meant we had to remove the gearbox to solve the issue, costing us track time.

Mercedes GP Petronas

Nico Rosberg

“The good thing is that I felt completely at home and comfortable in the cockpit straight away this morning. Initial impressions are very difficult to make as we’ve now changed to the Pirelli tyres but the feeling was very good. It just feels like a better car in general and it will be good to have a full day to really make progress tomorrow.”

Michael Schumacher

“It has always been and is still very special to go out in a new car for the first time, and I very much enjoyed today even if it was just a few laps that we could do. Maybe you could sum it up
with: interesting but short! It was mainly about doing a few system checks today and I am looking forward to the laps to come. All in all, I am very happy after today’s launch of our new baby, and I can’t wait for the season to start.”

Ross Brawn

“It felt good to see the MGP W02 finally take to the track after so much hard work from everyone at the factory to prepare the car for this first test. Michael and Nico felt comfortable and had a good feeling from the car, although we were limited in the mileage that we achieved today. We had a hydraulic problem early on which limited Nico’s running but were able to change the system to get Michael out for a few laps at the end. The first tests are about focusing on reliability, which admittedly was not great today, and getting the KERS system functioning well. Performance testing will develop over the next month as we get more running under our belts.”

AT&T Williams F1

Sam Michael, Technical Director

“It’s been a good day in terms of getting through things. We had a problem with KERS this morning so we didn’t use it in the afternoon. Besides that, everything else on the car is working and we didn’t have any problems with temperatures, pressures and all the systems are working fine. We now plan to do more mileage and setup work tomorrow. The moveable rear wing also worked fine today so all in all a pretty good first day.”

Rubens Barrichello

“I couldn’t wait to get back in the car. Unfortunately we lost a lot of time in the morning so we were trying to play catch up in the afternoon. We did some good laps and some long runs in the car. It is too early to say how we are performing but we will now spend time to try and understand the car a little better.”

HRT F1 Team

Colin Kolles, Team Principal

“On our first testing of the 2011 season, we are happy to start on one of our home tracks, here in Valencia. In the morning, the track was still green but improved during the day. We had a good day and could run out our program. Narain made no mistakes, and he is still building up his speed. He has to adapt himself again to Formula 1, to get used to the high G-forces and to the new Pirelli tyres. We have to analyze the data of today´s testing and I am looking forwards to see how Narain progresses on the following days.”

Narain Karthikeyan

“It did not seem to be easy to drive the new car after all this time but finally it was not that difficult. I got into it quite quickly and yes, we could have done some more laps but we have some minor problems, but all and all I am very happy to be back, and I think the body and the mind did pretty well, so I am looking forwards for the next two days”.

Toni Cuquerella, Chief Race and test engineer Hispania Racing

“Narain has done a very good job in his return to F1. He has worked in the car systems and has been familiarizing with the new tyres. The collected data will be really helpful to carry over to the new F111”.