A perfect day of testing for Lotus

F1 Test, Barcelona, Circuit de Catalunya

Romain Grosjean completed the first full race simulation for the Lotus E21 during the course of an uninterrupted and trouble free day’s running at Barcelona. The Frenchman completed a total of 119 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya; more than any other team today.

Today's programme for Lotus included Systems checks, temperature monitoring, data correlation, assessment of the performance of the car with its initial aerodynamic package and a race simulation

Romain Grosjean: “I think I’m ready for a sleep after so many laps in the car! It’s good to see reliability today to add to the pace we’ve already seen in the car. We’re still at an early stage of development so it’s really promising to see where we are. It was difficult out on track as temperatures were so low, but we’ve gained a lot of useful data. The 2013 tyres certainly feel different from last year’s but already we’re starting to understand them. I hope it’s dry tomorrow so we can get some more laps under our belt.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “From our perspective it was a perfect day. We ticked off every item on the checklist and even had time to spare at the end of the session. That’s your target when you start a day’s testing but it’s seldom achieved, and after a couple of difficult days, it’s all the more satisfying. We completed a race distance simulation without any red flags or other stoppages, and that has helped us learn a lot more about Pirelli’s latest tyres. In the cold temperatures here, the tyres do look very difficult to manage, especially with high fuel loads in the car. However, as our ‘race’ progressed so tyre performance stabilised and we completed a 20-plus lap stint with consistent lap times. We still have plenty of work to do with set-up but we’re certainly making steps in the right direction.”

Romain Grosjean will take the wheel of E21 chassis 02 for the final day of this week’s test tomorrow.