The DAMS team took advantage of 3 full days’ testing on the Paul Ricard circuit in the south of France to run through a wide range of set-ups and prepare for the 2009 championship. The team’s 2 drivers, Kamui Kobayashi and Jérôme d’Ambrosio were on hand for the session.
The GP2 Series car has a few innovations for 2009 including an engine whose upper part have been given an in-depth revision adding another 25 bhp to the power output.
DAMS worked in a calm and studious manner evaluating the overall potential of the car without concentrating too much on times. The team preferred to improve the car’s driveability and look for the best set-up compromises for the coming season.
Day 1: 3D track layoutKamui Kobayashi 1m 12.140s: 3rd best timeJérôme d’Ambrosio 1m 12.574s: 9th best time
Day 2: 2A track layout with the long straightKamui Kobayashi 1m 09.220s: 6th best timeJérôme d’Ambrosio 1m 09.383s: 8th best time
Day 3: 2D track layoutKamui Kobayashi 1m 09.968s: 7th best timeJérôme d’Ambrosio 1m 10.221s: 12th best time
Eric Boullier: “We’ve used these three days to run through a wide range of technical set-ups and evaluate their efficiency. As we know that there will be no race on the Paul Ricard circuit, our priority was not to set the quickest time overall but to find solutions we can use on the tracks we’ll race on in 2009. We think we’ve found some interesting things, and we’ll be aiming to confirm this in Barcelona where the next test session is being held.”
Kamui Kobayashi: “I had to dial myself in after driving the GP2 Asian Series car and I felt the power increase from the new engine immediately. We haven’t run into any reliability problems over the three days, and I think we’ve found some interesting development areas to explore. There’s no point in setting the fastest time on the Paul Ricard circuit, but today I could have bagged it for the team as a kind of bonus if my runs on new tyres had not been aborted by the session being interrupted.”
Jérôme d’Ambrosio: “I’m satisfied with this test session which enabled me to get back to grips with the European GP2 single-seater and tackle the 2009 season. The different areas we’ve explored have helped us progress. Now, we just have to sift through all the results to find out the best set-ups for the circuits we’ll race on in the future. A damper problem prevented me from really going for a time on new tyres this afternoon, but it wasn’t a major set-back as it was only a test session.”
