Racing Engineering –
There were some very satisfying results for Racing Engineering on the two first test days of the 2008 GP2 series. The maiden outing of the new Dallara GP2 car that will be run by the teams competing in the F1 feeder series finished with the two drivers from the Spanish team, Giorgio Pantano and Javier Villa, setting the fourth and fifth fastest times overall at the end of the two days.
Both Giorgio and Javi showed their tremendous potential doing a great job, together with all the team members, to carry out the scheduled program. Despite the expected teething problems with the new car, which had its baptism of fire at Paul Ricard, it has been already possible to achieve first conclusions and see what is the right direction to keep working in so as to get as well prepared as possible for the first race of the season.
Racing Engineering’s targets are really ambitious this season and the lap times set by Javi and Giorgio on the French track at the wheel of the Repsol and Telefónica liveried cars showed that they make for one of the best lineups of the series. Both have been working well together and their driving style is quite similar which will allow the team to go progress faster in the cars setup. For this reason it will be important to keep with the same work programme next week at Barcelona, where the second test session of the season will be held.
Alfonso de Orleans Borbon: "Well first of all we worked very hard over the winter to get everything up to scratch and you can see this afternoon with Javi's time, P1, we are obviously there. First of all I would like to thank everyone in the team for the tremendous work they've done, we've had quite a few sleepless nights, the boys have been only getting a couple of hours sleep every evening and I think that it has paid off. Now we have got to get ready for Barcelona, it is going to be a real test because it will show what position we are in but everyone has done a very good job.
Both Giorgio Pantano and Javier Villa have done a tremendous job, they work very well together which is very important and which will really help us in the Team Championship where we obviously want to go for the win. Giorgio is an exceptional driver, he has had problems on the car which is normal as all the teams in the pitlane have had problems, so Giorgio hasn't been able to do as many laps as he wanted but I think if he had been out there he would have set the fastest time in one of the sessions for sure."
Giorgio Pantano: "It has been very good; I found the car very nice, very good. We worked quite well, we understand quite a lot of the pieces, I think we are on a good direction with the base balance of the car and position four is not bad but if I didn't make my mistake it would have been position one. Anyway I have enjoyed the test and I would like to say thank you to everyone, the mechanics and all the team for the job they've done in these two days and I'm looking forward to Barcelona.”
Javier Villa: “ Everything went pretty well for the first contact and after some time without driving whilst the others drivers have been running. I think we have been working very well in the winter and I feel really comfortable with the new car especially from yesterday to today, my confidence was growing and realising that I could be up there.
This morning we had some small problems with the engine so that we couldn’t run a lot but I think this afternoon the most important thing for us was to get on well with the car and feel comfortable with it and I think we did that although the morning lap times were difficult to reach in the afternoon, but still they were quite good. Right now we have to keep on working for Barcelona and again at Paul Ricard in order to get as much data as possible.”
- Ines Koschutnig - photos Racing Engineering
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