We’ve just finished our second two-day GP3 test at Jerez, and I really can’t complain about how it went. So far, when I’ve been trying for fast lap times, I haven’t been out of the top three, which is really good.
I had some experience of Jerez from testing there in Formula 3 at the end of last year, and the thing about this track is that it’s extremely high-grip and the tyre degradation is seriously high. The little stones in the Tarmac are really pointy and rough. What that can do is hide problems you have with your car, because when you’ve got so much grip you can get away with anything. Whenever you’re on new tyres at Jerez, you just think ‘Oh my God, the car’s perfect!’, so it’s important to bear that in mind.
Because of this, and the fact that Jerez isn’t a race venue on the GP3 calendar, it’s not the be-all and end-all to be fastest here, but I have to say I was really happy with our pace because you’re always hoping to be up there.
That said, it’s no secret that next week’s test at Barcelona is the big one, because that’s where we start the racing season on May 9-11, supporting the Spanish Grand Prix.
With Jerez usually being warmer than Estoril and Barcelona – it’s down south in Andalusia – it’s quite good to get an idea there of race pace and do some long runs. Our Carlin team pretty much spent each afternoon focusing on that, as did the others, and our car seemed quite good, but across most of the leading drivers there’s not a huge disparity. All the competitive drivers were doing very similar runs.
We hit the ground running on Thursday pretty well and went P2 straight away. Then we ran another set of new tyres and ended up only 0.2 seconds off, second overall: I was quite happy as it wasn’t the greatest lap I’ve ever done! In the afternoon I didn’t use any new tyres at all – we just focused on race runs and practice starts. That’s why I was down in 16th place, and it meant I had three new sets of Pirellis left for Friday.
On Friday morning we had really good form, but on my first set of new tyres we had an engine-management issue. Because of that I was really happy to do the second fastest time on my second set of tyres, just 0.1 seconds off P1. With that problem we’d had earlier, I didn’t have any references to gauge how hard I could push. In the afternoon we did two race runs, more practice starts and then right at the end we were able to go quicker again on new tyres – third this time, so we’re consistently up there.
Our pace seems really good. Every time we’ve hit the Tarmac we’ve been right up there. That’s exactly what we want so hopefully we can push on at Barcelona next week. We’ve been focusing a lot on winning the first race at Barcelona – a lot of effort into getting off the line well and making sure our race runs are good – so hopefully that will pay off!
