Positive day of testing for Racing Engineering in Paul Ricard

Racing Engineering had a positive and uneventful test day at the French track of Paul Ricard, the first of six pre-season test days before the 2010 GP2 season starts in Barcelona. Dani Clos and Christian Vietoris, official drivers for the Spanish team, both made steady progress during the day in their respective testing programs and look back onto a productive day, where important insights have been gained.

After yesterday's rain, the track was still wet and rather slippery in the morning, and there was little activity early on. As the morning progressed and the track conditions improved, some teams mounted slick tyres, although most drivers remained on wets. Both, Dani and Christian, had little running time in the morning, but fulfilled their objective of getting familiar with the car and circuit. Christian finished the morning session in 5th position and Dani in 8th place. During the afternoon session, on a drying track, both Racing Engineering drivers quickly took the top spots for most of the session. While first it was Dani ahead of Chris, the German responded and took over P1 and Dani took P2. However, the last half hour of the day saw a lot of activity and positions constantly changed, until Maldonado set the fastest time of the day at 1.12:987.

Dani, who was suffering from a minor technical issue earlier in the session, was stuck in traffic, which kept him from improving his lap time, but his objective was to work on the car’s set up today, to seek for improvements rather than looking for lap times. He had a positive and productive day of work with the team, and finished ninth overall, with a fastest time of 1.13:301. Christian Vietoris had his first proper day of work with Racing Engineering, and focused on getting used to the car and the team. He had a positive day, and only traffic on the track kept him from improving his lap time on his last run even further, finishing sixth overall, with a time of 1.13:203.

Dani Clos: "The morning started with bad weather. As it was raining, we decided to stay in the pits for quite some time and we only made some laps to see, that everything was fine and there was no problem on the car. These few laps were mainly there to have all new parts adapt to the car. Towards the end of the session the track dried up a bit and quite some drivers had slick tyres mounted.

We didn’t want to waste our tyres and have decided to keep them for later. In the afternoon, we waited a bit for the track to warm up. It was a good test, the car was in front and we were first. But our target here is to work. We know we have a good base and what we need is to work from there. Everyone is very close and I am very happy as we have improved the car and our goal was not a lap time."

Christian Vietoris: "This was my first time with the GP2 car in wet conditions, so I needed to get used to it. Luckily, I quickly managed to find the rhythm and was within the top three all the time. In the afternoon, the track dried up and I was quickly setting the fastest time. I was really happy with the team and the car. Everything was very nice, just as expected.

Towards the end of the afternoon session it got quite hectic on the track and I am sure I could have improved my lap time, but I encountered too much traffic. So, I am looking forward to tomorrow."


- Racing Engineering -