Mekis: We are happy with the information we have been able to collect

Laurent Mekies, who has led the team, now called Visa RB, since this year, complained that problems with the track’s condition disrupted normal work during pre-season testing for the second day in a row. Nevertheless, he emphasized that the team as a whole has managed to gather the necessary information about the new car.

Laurent Mekies: “Work stoppages due to track repairs obviously have consequences for the team, it is very frustrating for everyone, but unfortunately such things happen sometimes. Moreover, if each driver only has one and a half test days, this is already very little.

During testing, we focus solely on gathering the necessary information needed to understand the features of the new car. In reality, regardless of whether your impression of competitiveness is good or bad, you are still doing just that. Even if everything goes well, we do not enjoy any special joy, because we do not know what programs other teams are working on.

This is our last chance to obtain this necessary information: As you can see, aerodynamic sensors have been installed in our car and we are going to do some long series of laps at race pace, trying out different settings along the way.

In general, we are happy with the information we have already been able to collect, although the picture is far from ideal. But every year our tasks become more and more difficult, although it seems to me that the attractiveness of Formula 1 is also related to this.

I think it will be interesting for fans to look at cars hung with such sensors, because it clearly shows how complex our sport has become, how detailed we analyze the behavior of cars. But in general we can say that during the tests we were able to obtain the information we wanted to collect.

Our drivers, Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo, were in a very good mood before the tests. We reminded them that the tests only last three days, so let’s not try to achieve optimal balance, let’s not work on speed, and all this time should be used as efficiently as possible to get to know the car better.

And that’s exactly what they did: they made compromises so that we could run these tests as best as possible. I can say that the team as a whole has a very fighting spirit, everyone wants to take the next step forward, but we understand that such changes cannot be made quickly. At the same time, we work together and analyze everything together to understand what measures should be taken to achieve better results this year.

Therefore, during the tests it is important to collect adequate information about the car’s behavior and transfer it to the team base in Faenza, after which we must ensure that we have all the necessary tools to effectively modernize the chassis. We will also continue this work during the first races of the season.”