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IndyCar
INDYCAR: Barrichello Concludes Impressive Sebring Test
Rubens Barrichello matched times with some of IndyCar's best after two days at Sebring. Hinchcliffe, Servia and Wilson tried the DW12 and Honda had setbacks.
It’s only fitting that Formula One’s most experienced driver looked like an old Indy car pro after just a handful of laps of testing.
Joining KV Racing and his close friend, KV driver Tony Kanaan, for the two-day test at the heavily subscribed Sebring road course, Barrichello’s massive experience in much faster F1 machinery played a significant role in the 39-year-old Brazilian’s ability to master a new car, engine and track in a matter of minutes.
"I've only done a few laps, but it doesn't feel strange or unfamiliar,” he told SPEED.com after his first exploratory tours at speed around the 10-turn, 1.8-mile Sebring short course on Monday. "You don't want to go too hard right away; the engine is different than what I'm used to, but the carbon brakes and things like the hand clutch I'm used to. Overall, it's an interesting change for me. Right now, I'm just seeing how it feels and responds."
The first signs of Barrichello’s relative comfort in the car came when he used the F1-style steering wheel-based clutch system to ease away from the pits for the first time with no dramas, while Kanaan, who is still getting acclimated with the system, stalled on the first attempt to leave his pit box moments earlier. Barrichello was soon exiting the pits with an extra helping of revs and his Firestone tires alight, conjuring images of the CART and Champ Car days when drivers would use the building turbo boost to snap the car sideways and leave behind a shower of smoke and rubber.
Barrichello’s initial duties for KV were rather mundane, performing two installation laps with the brand-new No. 5 entry before returning to the pits to allow KV’s ace mechanics inspect the car. Once his Dallara DW12-Chevrolet was given a clean bill of health, the veteran of more than 300 F1 starts wasted little time getting down to business.
With a bogey lap in the low 53-second range set by Kanaan, Barrichello posted a mid-54-second lap during his first serious run, and by the end of the day, matched his dear friend with a low 53-second lap of his own.
The day’s activities saw overheated brakes cause Kanaan to tear the left front wing off the No. 11 KV on his first outing, and also witnessed James Hinchcliffe getting his first taste of life as an Andretti Autosport driver, ending the day just 1/10th off of Barrichello’s best lap.
“For my first time out in the car, I think you can definitely say it’s bordering on fun,” he said. “It’s so cool for me to be part of a developmental phase of a car. Coming up through the ranks, you’d step into cars that were already well sorted, so this is a whole new challenge for me and I’m really enjoying it. And being part of the Andretti organization is also really cool. You can feel the moment that’s going on right now, and that exactly what you want.”
Life in the Lotus camp was less enjoyable on Monday.
Lotus’ strategy of using a single engine during its initial tests has seen its twin-turbo V6 powerplant return to its designers and builders at Engine Developments Limited after every test for a complete teardown, inspection and rebuild before being shipped back for the next test, and the unique strategy caught the British marque out over the weekend.
A slight shipping gaffe saw the marque’s test engine arrive 30 minutes late in Orlando, which led to U.S. Customs holding the unit longer than expected. When the engine did arrive early in the afternoon on Monday, it was immediately installed, but a leak appeared during warmup, and the time require to fix the leak closed the window on Oriol Servia getting out to turn his first laps in the DW12.
Team Penske was present with all three of its drivers, with Ryan Briscoe shaking down a brand-new chassis and experiencing a few new car gremlins throughout the day, and Panther Racing’s JR Hildebrand was on hand to log more miles in what Panther engineer Dave Cripps described as a “chance to experiment a bit to learn about what the car does and doesn’t like.”
Tuesday’s running, which included a number of Honda-powered teams and the emergence of Servia in the Lotus factory car, was very much a stop-start affair, filled with red flags for spins, offs and stalls that made long runs hard to come by.
Like Monday, Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay led all drivers, posting a low 52-second lap in his Chevrolet-powered Dallara DW12.
“Everything is going very well,” he told SPEED.com. “As a team, we’re really progressing well. Marco shook down the car in Palm Beach on Friday and Saturday, handing it off in great form and we’ve just been checking items off the testing list. It’s been going great. The Chevy engine has been great, too—just as expected.”
While maximum power output on road courses was a source of concern for some drivers that tested 2012 cars late last year, those complaints were nowhere to be found at Sebring. Observing at several corners where hard acceleration was required, wheelspin and oversteer were easily induced, making for a lot of fast work on the steering wheel and the throttle.
It isn’t the 900 horsepower some dream of having, but in the hands of the more skilled IndyCar drivers, going fast in the DW12 calls for a willingness to let the back of the car step out a few times each lap.
Although Hunter-Reay wouldn’t comment on whether Chevrolet had dialed up the power in recent weeks, he did note that the 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 is becoming quite refined in a short amount of time.
Joining KV Racing and his close friend, KV driver Tony Kanaan, for the two-day test at the heavily subscribed Sebring road course, Barrichello’s massive experience in much faster F1 machinery played a significant role in the 39-year-old Brazilian’s ability to master a new car, engine and track in a matter of minutes.
"I've only done a few laps, but it doesn't feel strange or unfamiliar,” he told SPEED.com after his first exploratory tours at speed around the 10-turn, 1.8-mile Sebring short course on Monday. "You don't want to go too hard right away; the engine is different than what I'm used to, but the carbon brakes and things like the hand clutch I'm used to. Overall, it's an interesting change for me. Right now, I'm just seeing how it feels and responds."
The first signs of Barrichello’s relative comfort in the car came when he used the F1-style steering wheel-based clutch system to ease away from the pits for the first time with no dramas, while Kanaan, who is still getting acclimated with the system, stalled on the first attempt to leave his pit box moments earlier. Barrichello was soon exiting the pits with an extra helping of revs and his Firestone tires alight, conjuring images of the CART and Champ Car days when drivers would use the building turbo boost to snap the car sideways and leave behind a shower of smoke and rubber.
Barrichello’s initial duties for KV were rather mundane, performing two installation laps with the brand-new No. 5 entry before returning to the pits to allow KV’s ace mechanics inspect the car. Once his Dallara DW12-Chevrolet was given a clean bill of health, the veteran of more than 300 F1 starts wasted little time getting down to business.
With a bogey lap in the low 53-second range set by Kanaan, Barrichello posted a mid-54-second lap during his first serious run, and by the end of the day, matched his dear friend with a low 53-second lap of his own.
The day’s activities saw overheated brakes cause Kanaan to tear the left front wing off the No. 11 KV on his first outing, and also witnessed James Hinchcliffe getting his first taste of life as an Andretti Autosport driver, ending the day just 1/10th off of Barrichello’s best lap.
“For my first time out in the car, I think you can definitely say it’s bordering on fun,” he said. “It’s so cool for me to be part of a developmental phase of a car. Coming up through the ranks, you’d step into cars that were already well sorted, so this is a whole new challenge for me and I’m really enjoying it. And being part of the Andretti organization is also really cool. You can feel the moment that’s going on right now, and that exactly what you want.”
Life in the Lotus camp was less enjoyable on Monday.
Lotus’ strategy of using a single engine during its initial tests has seen its twin-turbo V6 powerplant return to its designers and builders at Engine Developments Limited after every test for a complete teardown, inspection and rebuild before being shipped back for the next test, and the unique strategy caught the British marque out over the weekend.
A slight shipping gaffe saw the marque’s test engine arrive 30 minutes late in Orlando, which led to U.S. Customs holding the unit longer than expected. When the engine did arrive early in the afternoon on Monday, it was immediately installed, but a leak appeared during warmup, and the time require to fix the leak closed the window on Oriol Servia getting out to turn his first laps in the DW12.
Team Penske was present with all three of its drivers, with Ryan Briscoe shaking down a brand-new chassis and experiencing a few new car gremlins throughout the day, and Panther Racing’s JR Hildebrand was on hand to log more miles in what Panther engineer Dave Cripps described as a “chance to experiment a bit to learn about what the car does and doesn’t like.”
Tuesday’s running, which included a number of Honda-powered teams and the emergence of Servia in the Lotus factory car, was very much a stop-start affair, filled with red flags for spins, offs and stalls that made long runs hard to come by.
Like Monday, Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay led all drivers, posting a low 52-second lap in his Chevrolet-powered Dallara DW12.
“Everything is going very well,” he told SPEED.com. “As a team, we’re really progressing well. Marco shook down the car in Palm Beach on Friday and Saturday, handing it off in great form and we’ve just been checking items off the testing list. It’s been going great. The Chevy engine has been great, too—just as expected.”
While maximum power output on road courses was a source of concern for some drivers that tested 2012 cars late last year, those complaints were nowhere to be found at Sebring. Observing at several corners where hard acceleration was required, wheelspin and oversteer were easily induced, making for a lot of fast work on the steering wheel and the throttle.
It isn’t the 900 horsepower some dream of having, but in the hands of the more skilled IndyCar drivers, going fast in the DW12 calls for a willingness to let the back of the car step out a few times each lap.
Although Hunter-Reay wouldn’t comment on whether Chevrolet had dialed up the power in recent weeks, he did note that the 2.2-liter twin-turbo V6 is becoming quite refined in a short amount of time.
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