F1 TESTING @ VALENCIA // DAY 2 REPORTS

Ahead of today's third and final Formula One test session at the Ricardo Tormo road course in Valencia, Spain, Renault and Mercedes give us a resume of yesterdays session and what we can expect as the teams return to testing this afternoon... [read more]

MERCEDES GP PETRONAS:

Nico Rosberg was back at the wheel of the MGP W01 car today for his first full day of testing for the MERCEDES GP PETRONAS team. Another fine and dry day in Valencia provided ideal winter testing conditions and enabled the team to successfully work through today’s programme.

After completing the initial set-up work with the MGP W01 yesterday morning, Nico had a productive day focusing on long runs which saw him cover a race distance mileage over the course of the day. Although still not entirely comfortable with his position in the car, Nico completed 119 laps today, setting a fastest lap time of 01:12.899.

Michael Schumacher will take over from Nico today for the third and final day of this week’s test.

Nico Rosberg: “I’m very pleased with our first full day of testing and we were really able to get into the programme and achieve some good work today. We successfully completed a race distance on the car’s second day of running and I’m quite happy with how the car felt on the longer runs with heavy fuel. It felt like the same car, just a little bit slower, but the balance was good. We’ve still got some work to do on my position in the car as I dropped down by 1.5cm during the day which explains why the visibility got a little difficult towards the end but that’s something we can fix before the next test. Overall it’s been a positive start to our pre-season testing and I’m enjoying working with the team and feeling very comfortable here.”

Renault:

The Renault F1 Team remained in Valencia today for a second day of testing at the Spanish track. Weather conditions remained dry and sunny, allowing the team to complete another busy day working with the R30. Robert Kubica continued to add mileage to the car and clocked up a total of 119 laps by the end of the day.

For todays test, Vitaly Petrov will take over the cockpit of the R30 for his first day of work with the team.

Robert Kubica: “After checking the systems on the car yesterday, we spent today trying to understand the car a bit more, especially to see how the balance reacted to some set-up changes. It’s quite different to what I have been used to, so it was important to get a good feel for how the car behaves. We did one very long run, which went pretty well, and there have been no problems, which is a good sign for our reliability.”

Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer: “Another good day. We did a lot of laps: 119 in total, so we’re pleased with our reliability. The changes we made overnight have cured some of the understeer and Robert seems much happier and is feeling more comfortable with the car now. The track conditions were reasonably good and the Bridgestone tyres are particularly well suited to the circuit and are easy to test with.”

Images and Info: Mercedes GP/Renault F1
Editorial: Neil Tozer