Van der Garde completed 72 laps for Caterham
Giedo van der Garde was able to complete 72 laps today at Abu Dhabi, gathering a lot more data than on the first day of the young driver test. The Dutchman is now looking forward to Brazil where he will take part in FP1 one more time.
Giedo van der Garde: “It’s been a great couple of days here in Abu Dhabi and I want to thank the team for giving me the chance to drive in the rookie test yesterday and today.
“Today we ran considerably more laps than on day one. We spent the morning running through more aero work and ran with a number of different setups that give the team a huge amount of data to work through that will be really useful for the last two races of the season. In the afternoon we switched to longer runs, looking at tyre management and how the car behaves on different fuel loads and I’m pleased with the progress we made. Towards the end of the session we put soft tyres on and I had a couple of runs that were closer to the performance runs we do in FP3 – the car had more fuel than in quali but I’m pretty happy with where I ended up.
“Next up for me is FP1 in Brazil, another track that’ll be new for me but with the time I’ve had on track here, and in the other FP1s I’ve done this year, I think that’ll be a good session for me. I’m not doing FP1 in Austin as the team needs maximum time on track for the race drivers, but I’ll be going to the race as Reserve Driver and I’m really looking forward to getting out there – it’s going to be a great week for sure.”
Chassis: CT01-#02
Fastest lap: 1.45.106 (lap 66)
Total laps: 72
