Mario Isola on the shakedown week

"The Barcelona shakedown marked the start of a new era for Formula 1. A week of private testing ahead of the official pre-season sessions in Bahrain proved useful for the teams and drivers, mainly for evaluating the reliability of the power units and getting to grips with battery energy management, which is set to play a key role this season.

Overall, it was definitely a positive few days. The cars completed a lot of laps, possibly more than had been expected, with good reliability from the engines. The hardest three slick compounds that we supplied to the teams worked as expected, delivering convincing performance, despite the low temperatures. Only the softest compound, the C3, showed signs of a bit of graining on the front left, which is a well-known phenomenon here in Barcelona and in this instance, it was linked mainly to the cold conditions.

In fact, when considering race weekends where temperatures are low, or on less demanding tracks, it will be interesting to see how the need to conserve the level of charge in the battery will influence a driver’s approach on the out-lap, when it is vital to bring the tyres up to operating temperature. We have in fact noticed a more conservative approach, favouring the ERS, which could change the way drivers go out about preparing for a flying lap in qualifying.

The data from Bahrain should definitely be more relevant, as the cars will be more representative of what we will see in Melbourne and the temperatures will be similar to those we will encounter in the races. Actually, compared to simulations, we are still seeing discrepancies in terms of performance and loads."