On Monday, tester Nico Hulkenberg was charged with debuting the FW30 for a brief 20-lap shakedown. Hulkenberg then handed the new car over to race driver Nico Rosberg, who managed to complete a comprehensive Grand Prix simulation. Rosberg eventually finished third fastest in the times with a best lap of 1m 12.721s.
“Its always special to finally get to test the new car,” he said. “It was a positive start for us, particularly as we completed a race distance with the FW30 on its debut without any problems. It is quite different to last years car in many ways so it will be very important that we make the most of the upcoming tests to try and extract its full potential.”
The young Germans team mate, Kazuki Nakajima, was also in attendance but charged with testing the older interim car over Tuesday and Wednesday, while Rosberg acclimatised to the FW30. Nakajima eventually got his first taste of the new machine on Thursday and recorded the fourth-fastest time of the day, a 1m 11.971s.
“This week marked the initial test for the FW30 and it was a good beginning from a reliability and performance point of view,” explained the teams technical director, Sam Michael. “After Nico Hulkenberg shook the car down on Mondays installation day, Nico Rosberg carried out the initial setup and reliability work and Kazuki took over for the last day to work on long runs and some set-up items.”
The team will now stay in Spain but will move to Barcelona for next weeks multi-team test where Rosberg and Nakajima are both expected to drive FW30s over the three-day session.
