First test ends in Jerez Part 2

The first Formula One test of the season in Jerez came to an end in Spain and over the weekend the teams assessed their performance, while everyone else tried to guess who will be pleased.

VitalF1.com Part 1 - First test ends in Jerez

So what does everyone think?

'We learned a lot about the difference of the car, It's been a learning test for us, a lot of constant speeds for us to do the aero and mechanical tests.

'Overall, it has been a positive four days for us and understanding the car. But obviously, with a completely new concept and a completely new design, there is a lot of room for improvement for us and that's what we need to focus on in the next couple of tests.' Ferrari's Fernando Alonso told the BBC.

Red Bull Sebastian Vettel told Sky Sports: 'I'm happy with the progress we've made, I think we managed to get a lot done. Of course, this morning was a bit of a setback but these things happen. Something like this is simply part of testing, this is the reason why we are here. Of course we would like to get more laps done, but that can't be changed now. So we go back to the factory, look at everything we have learned from this week and prepare for the next test in Barcelona, where I'm looking forward to putting some more miles on the car.'

While McLaren's Lewis Hamilton spoke to the BBC and said: 'My initial thoughts were pretty good. It was quite a tough day where you had to go through a lot of test items, but it went pretty smoothly.

'No nasty surprises. Nice surprise is that it feels reasonably quick, so that's a good thing, although obviously it can always be better.

'The baseline we have is something we can really work with. I know the guys back in the factory will take a lot from these four test days and translate that into something new for the next test.'

It was also an important test for Pirelli who had brought completely new designed compound tyres to Jerez.

The new tyres have been designed to be 'squarer' which will improve grip and handling for the drivers, while tweaks to the construction of the tyre will mean that plenty of teams will be working hard to work out the optimum tyre strategy over the course of the race weekend.

One of the main reasons behind this will be down to the smaller gap in performance between the compounds. During 2011 some of the tyre compounds offered around 1.5 seconds per lap difference, but Pirelli hope to have shortened the gap to less than a second per lap between compounds.

Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery told Sky Sports: 'The tyres performed exactly in line with our expectations in Jerez,' said the Pirelli motorsport boss.

'We've had a very positive reaction from the drivers and teams so far, who have reported more grip at the rear, fewer 'marbles' and a reduced lap time difference between the compounds as well as faster overall performance - which is precisely what we wanted.

'We're happy with the level of degradation and we had no issues, as was the case for all of last year.