Gonzalez takes the wheel at Marussia on day 2
Day Two of the Young Driver Test at Silverstone saw Marussia's Reserve Driver Rodolfo Gonzalez at the wheel of the MR02 for both the morning and afternoon sessions.
Rodolfo has competed in three FP1 sessions so far this season, so the opportunity to work through a more detailed programme and accrue greater mileage was most welcome for our young Venezuelan. Over the course of the day he completed 92 laps, which equates to more than 500kms, the same distance as one and a half Grands Prix.
Tomorrow, Rodolfo will return to the car for the morning session before Jules Bianchi takes over for the afternoon.
Rodolfo Gonzalez, #61: “It’s been really good to be back in the MR02 and for a whole day rather than the 90 minute FP1 sessions I have taken part in so far. I’ve had a really full programme today and I’ve been able to put some longer runs together and find a good rhythm. After a very intensive day I’m looking forward to getting back in the car tomorrow morning to finish the work we started today and focus more on some performance runs.”
John Booth, Team Principal: “Today has been a more productive day. This was the first opportunity in a long time for us to perform testing with many sets of tyres and so the focus of our programme has been to evaluate a whole series of test items that have been in our development plan for some time. As is usual, when carrying out this work we have not really been focusing on lap times but more engineering comparisons. We are pleased with the results of the test in the areas of control systems, suspension and set-up oriented around the new tyres. We have gathered a large amount of data which will be analysed over the coming days before Budapest and hopefully some of the items that we have worked on will yield benefit.”
