| Barcelona Test Day 2: Clocking up the miles
It was a more productive day at the track as Vitaly drove the R31 this morning, before Nick took over driving duties in the afternoon.
Drivers: Vitaly / Nick What we learned today: – The R31 was fitted with some new parts to the water system, which successfully resolved the problems the team experienced in Jerez. – The team logged some useful data from its suspension set-up programme in the afternoon, evaluating changes to the front and rear systems. Vitaly: “After losing the track time yesterday, it was nice to be back in the car this morning and we completed quite a lot of laps. We found a lot of new things and worked on the general set-up, as well as understanding how the tyres are performing. It’s quite cold here, especially compared to Jerez, so it was difficult to warm up the tyres to begin with, but we’ve learned quite a lot from the short runs we did.” Nick: “The balance of the car was not as good as it was in Jerez, but we did improve things by the end of the day. We lost a bit of time at the start of the afternoon, but when I did get out we did some useful work including new tyre runs, data collection and some work on the car’s systems. But we still need lots more mileage because there are a lot of things on our job list to try, especially for the set-up of the car.” – We focussed on medium-length runs of eight to ten laps, and worked on the set-up and understanding the tyres on this track. We ran on three out of the four dry tyre compounds, evaluating both new and scrubbed sets. Did You Know? Barcelona Test, Day 3: Wet and dry running for Vitaly A damp start in Barcelona turned to sunshine in the afternoon as Vitaly got back behind the wheel of the R31. Nick will be in the car for the final day of testing tomorrow. Driver: Vitaly What we learned today: – We gathered some useful data on the intermediates Pirelli tyres as Vitaly and the team completed its first significant mileage on them – The R31 was fitted with a different spec of exhaust tail pipe. Aero data was collected to assess its effect on car performance. Vitaly: “We used the intermediates to begin with and it was one of our first opportunities to do a lot of laps with them. The only issue we had was warming them up because it was very cold early on. The plan was to do a race distance in the morning and we managed quite a lot of long runs while the track was wet. Then, we put the slicks on just before lunch and started improving the set-up. We learned a lot of new things and I’m starting to understand the tyres more and how to get the most from this car.” Alan Permane’s technical programme notes – It was a slow start to the day with the wet conditions, but we did some long runs on the intermediates. However we were interrupted by several red flags. – For the afternoon, Vitaly started a set-up programme, and we made some good progress with the suspension changes at the front and rear. We also did some work with tyre pressures and found some more improvements. Overall the car has responded well to the changes today and Vitaly has been much happier.” Did You Know? |
