Lotus happy to get more tracktime with DRD

F1 Test, Silverstone, Silverstone Circuit

Davide Valsecchi completed the second day of running at the Silverstone Young Driver Test as the third-fastest driver of the day. After completing 91 laps, Davide recorded the fourth-fastest time overall due to Daniel Ricciardo setting lap times in two different cars.

Davide ran through a programme of aerodynamic assessments including analysis work on the team’s rear wing ‘Device’, more commonly known as DRD. Nico Prost returns to the car on Friday in a change to the original programme – which had seen Kimi Räikkönen set to take the wheel – made following clarification of FIA rules.

Davide Valsecchi: “Today was the highlight of my season and I really enjoyed my time in the car. Everything seemed to be going well and I hope that I’ve been able to contribute to the team’s efforts ahead of the next race in Budapest. We completed all the jobs on the schedule and I think I got some extra laps in too. I did miss the pit board for a few laps when the team was trying to call me in as the radio was broken. I stayed out until I thought they were going to throw the pit board at me, then I thought it was better that I came in!”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “Another excellent day from our perspective, with a full programme completed enabling us to develop our rear wing ‘Device’. It was perfect to test it here as we previously ran with the ‘Device’ at the British Grand Prix, so the data from that event combined with today’s work has allowed us to further refine it. Within today’s running we used the hard and medium tyres in high and low fuel configurations. We’re beginning to get a good understanding of the latest tyre evolution and have been looking at how best to get and keep them in their optimum operating window. We have some good data to study the tyre degradation characteristics and we’re well placed to go into the final day of the test and make further progress.”