Lotus F1 Team set the pace at the second day of testing at the Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello in Italy, with a time of 1min 21.603s set by Romain Grosjean early in the morning session being the lap to beat. It was equalled late in the day, but never bettered.
Fast facts:
Track: Mugello, Italy, 5.25km Chassis: E20-02Weather: Glorious sunshine, clouds, air 14-25°C, track 15-37°CProgramme: Aerodynamic work, setup work, high and medium fuel runs, data collection and correlation, sun appreciationLaps Completed: 97Classification: 1st, 1:21.603Interruptions: Red flags – no issues for teamWhat’s next? Romain Grosjean will take to the wheel of the E20 tomorrow for the final day at Mugello.
Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1 Team Race Driver: “It’s always good to end the day on top, but we have to remember that in testing lap times mean very little. Having said that, the car felt great and I was very comfortable from the start. This test gives us an opportunity to try things that we wouldn’t have time to do during a race weekend, so hopefully it’ll help us to keep pushing forward. We’ve done a lot of setup work today, and for sure we’ll need to take some time to look through all the data and analyse what we need to focus on tomorrow, but it’s a good baseline for the final day.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “Romain was very happy with the car straight away. We made a couple of minor balance adjustments to fine tune it for him after Jérôme’s running yesterday and then went into our test programme. Today we were concentrating on different suspension setups, so we had a fairly major change over lunch which took a couple of hours. We’ve got some good data from this which we’ll need to sit down and assess tonight to decide what our strategy will be for tomorrow; i.e. whether we re-test or stick with what we’ve got. The car is working very well here; we’ve run a variety of medium and high fuel loads as we would at a race weekend to assess the effects of the suspension change, and we’re pleased with what we’ve seen. Overall, a positive day.”
1. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m21.603s2. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m21.603s + 0.000s3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m21.825s + 0.222s4. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m21.997s + 0.394s5. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m22.257s + 0.654s6. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m22.422s + 0.819s7. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m22.588s + 0.985s8. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m23.404s + 1.801s9. Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 1m23.982s + 2.379s10 Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 1m24.312s + 2.709s11 Gary Paffett McLaren-Mercedes 1m24.480s + 2.877s12 Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 1m24.499s + 2.896s13 Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m24.749s + 3.146s14 Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 1m24.842s + 3.239s
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