Sutil and Albers share testing duties on day 2

Adrian Sutil and Christijan Albers took over driving duties for the second day of the Etihad Aldar Spyker Formula One Team’s four-day test at the Circuit de Castellet Paul Ricard. Continuing on the shorter 2D-SC track, the team pushed on with its Monaco Grand Prix preparations, with Adrian putting in valuable work on tyre evaluation and Monaco set-up in the morning. The German completed 67 laps with a best time of 1min 08.14

Christijan Albers took over from Adrian in the afternoon and put in some quick laps to as he ran through different set-ups and checked systems in advance of next week’s Grand Prix. Christijan recorded a best time of 1min 07.946.

Markus Winkelhock and Christijan Albers will fulfil driving duties tomorrow when a different circuit configuration will be used and the team’s focus switches to preparation for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Dominic Harlow, chief race and test engineer "Both race drivers tested today, running again on the Monaco simulation short track layout. They ran a similar programme, working on set-up and control systems developments and comparing the tyres available for the race. The engineers made good progress in improving the car behaviour in the low speed corners. Tomorrow Markus Winkelhock will test after we have changed the specification of the car overnight to suit the Montreal simulation circuit layout that will be used for the remainder of the test."

Adrian Sutil "I think today was OK. I think in just half a day we found a lot of good information and have a very good idea of the direction to take for Monaco. We checked out control systems and both tyre options available for the race, the soft and super-soft. The soft was fine, but on the super-soft I found that after one lap they had gone off and it was difficult to find a balance. I think Christijan improved on this in the afternoon, but I think there is still some more work to do on getting it exactly right. I’m back in the car on Friday and hope we’ll be better on the different circuit layout."

Christijan Albers "I took over from Adrian just after lunch and went as quick as him almost straight away. Unfortunately we had some minor mechanical issues, but the programme went well and I think we got some really good information for Monaco. We ran consistently and are getting closer and closer to the pace in front. Although we’re still not quite as quick, we are moving step by step closer to them. For me too, I am much more comfortable in the car and I hope the line of development will get even steeper now we’ve overcome this. I’m back in the car tomorrow and I hope for more, getting even more comfortable and going quicker. Even though we’re using a different circuit configuration tomorrow and testing for Canada, there are still some corners that we used today so I think we can really build on our work. Thanks to the test team for all their efforts, I think today’s gone really well."

Testing data
Driver: Adrian Sutil (am), Christijan Albers (pm)
Track: Circuit de Castellet, 'Paul Ricard 2D-SC-Short', France
Best lap time: Sutil: 1min 08.14, Albers: 1min 07.946
Laps completed: Sutil: 67, Albers: 66
Kilometres completed: 478km