Final Day In Valencia

It's the final day of the Valencia test as Robert remains in the R31 to wrap things up for this week. All in all it's been an action-packed few days for LRGP with our launch on Monday and the track debut of the R31 on Tuesday.

Yesterday was very much a day for Robert to get used to his new car. With over 100 laps on the board, it was a much more satisfying day for the team than Tuesday when the car suffered with some mechanical issues. By clocking up so many miles yesterday, we managed to tick off a lot of the items on the job list and complete those all-important pre-season checks.

As for today, the programme is more focussed on tyre evaluation and getting down to some set-up work. Robert started the morning by doing low-speed aero runs, while the plan for the rest of the afternoon is focussed on longer runs to understand the tyres and get more miles on the car.

As you'd expect for Valencia in February, conditions were freezing first thing this morning, but by about midday the paddock was bathed in glorious winter sunshine. And that's great news for testing because it means we can run the car in more representative temperatures and get some useful data. Plus, some of the mechanics will come back to Enstone with a bit of a sun tan!

While Robert is in the car, Vitaly is also at the track doing some media work. Today he had a photoshoot for F1 Racing magazine, followed by a few interviews for the Russian media. Then it was time for some green screen filming with German TV – creating some stylish intro shots for their F1 coverage this season. Vitaly really enjoyed this – he actually said that one day he might like to star in a movie himself!