Upside Down - Barcelona Test, Day 2

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:

• Track: Barcelona, Spain, 5.9km
  
• Chassis: E21-02
  
• Weather: Cloudy, bookending showers, ambient 8-11°C, track 8-13°C
  
• 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
  
• Laps Completed: 88
  
• Classification: P1, 1:22.716
  
• Interruptions: Red flags
  

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.”