ZitatWhy Does It Always Rain On Me? - Barcelona Test, Day 1
Romain Grosjean returned to the Circuit de Catalunya for another day of testing in cold and wet conditions in Barcelona. The team ran through a programme of assessments and correlations, including work on the DDRS Device.
With the unfavourable track conditions, only short aerodynamic runs were conducted in the afternoon.
Fast Facts:
[list] [*] Track: Barcelona, Spain, 5.9km [/*:m][*] Chassis: E21-02 [/*:m][*] Weather: Cloudy, frequent showers, ambient 8-10°C, track 8-12°C [/*:m][*] Programme: System checks, temperature monitoring, data correlation, assessment of the performance of the car with its initial aerodynamic package, DDRS Device correlation [/*:m][*] Laps Completed: 52 [/*:m][*] Classification: P11, 1:34.928 [/*:m][*] Interruptions: Red flags[/*:m][/list:u]
What’s Next?
Romain returns to the E21 for his final day of pre-season testing tomorrow.
Romain Grosjean: “Another day with bad weather in Barcelona is not what I wanted, but there’s nothing you can do about it. It was a bit of a frustrating day as we concentrated on aero runs and never went for a time on the drying track surface. The car feels good on both the intermediate and wet tyres and we’ve run through more of our pre-season test programme so those are positives. You never want to see yourself at the bottom of the timing screens, so hopefully that’s the only time it happens this season. We certainly know there’s more pace in the car than we saw today!”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “Given the weather, this morning’s session concentrated on running assessments between the wet and intermediate tyres and we’re getting a much better idea of Pirelli’s 2013 wet tyres. In the afternoon we concentrated on assessing our rear wing DDRS Device. These conditions aren’t great as it’s difficult to run comparison tests with an ever changing track surface. Nevertheless, we’ve clocked up more laps on the E21, tried different settings and conducted numerous aero-runs. This meant that our lap time today was very far from what we’d expect had we conducted a more normal test programme.”
Romain Grosjean finished his pre-season preparations as the fastest man on track at the Circuit de Catalunya today, with weather conditions continuing to frustrate the team’s test programme.
In a day book-ended by rain, an extensive programme was nevertheless completed; including the evaluation of a new rear suspension set-up. As well as being the fastest driver on track, Romain accumulated the third greatest lap tally of the day.
Fast Facts:
[list] [*] Track: Barcelona, Spain, 5.9km [/*:m][*] Chassis: E21-02 [/*:m][*] Weather: Cloudy, bookending showers, ambient 8-11°C, track 8-13°C [/*:m][*] Programme: System checks, temperature monitoring, data correlation, assessment of the performance of the car with its initial aerodynamic package, new rear suspension set-up evaluation [/*:m][*] Laps Completed: 88 [/*:m][*] Classification: P1, 1:22.716 [/*:m][*] Interruptions: Red flags[/*:m][/list:u]
What’s Next?
Kimi will drive the E21 for the final two days of pre-season testing, starting tomorrow.
Romain Grosjean: “Even though the weather was far from ideal it was a pretty good day for us and it’s certainly a better feeling to end the session with the fastest time on the board rather than the slowest! We had strong reliability again today and the E21 feels good in all conditions, which is very promising for the season ahead. Of course, I wish I could have more time in the car before the season starts, but if we’re in the same position on the monitors when we get to Australia I’ll be very happy indeed.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “Today was far more productive than yesterday. We debuted a new rear suspension variation, working on initial set-up in the wet conditions this morning, then switched to dry tyres in the afternoon to gather further data on the medium and soft 2013 Pirelli compounds. Whilst circuit conditions are not as favourable as last week due to the recent rain, we were still able to show good pace and our initial findings from the new rear suspension are promising. Over the next two days we will be working on the updates we have for the E21; there’s plenty of work left to do and we’re hoping that the forecasts for better weather over the weekend are correct.”
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Thu Feb 28, 2013 12:43 pm
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