Lotus Barcelona test II - Day 1 report

On a warm day in Barcelona, Romain Grosjean made a successful return to the cockpit, and was pleased with the day’s progress.

Lotus F1 Team returned to the track today for the first of four days testing at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona, Spain. Romain Grosjean took the wheel, completing 73 laps and setting the fastest time of the day.

On a warm day in Barcelona, Romain Grosjean made a successful return to the cockpit, and was pleased with the day’s progress: “The car was feeling very good and it’s great to bounce back from our dramas to set the fastest time of the day. It’s clear we have solved the problem we encountered and now we have to complete a very full test programme this week”

Romain Grosjean, Lotus Renault F1 Team

Photo by: xpb.cc

The Frenchman was also full of praise for the manner in which the team reacted after a difficult week back at Enstone: “The feeling in the team is fantastic and it’s like last week’s issues never happened. My crew told me that the problems would make us stronger, and this is true. The chassis is stronger, and all the team is stronger. We gathered good data today and we have a few interesting things that we would like to confirm tomorrow which should help us make a good step forwards.”

Technical Director James Allison was also satisfied after a productive day at the circuit, with no major dramas and a busy schedule completed:

“Our main target for today was to compress as much set-up work as we could into the first day as we are playing catch-up relative to our rivals at this track. Of course, we want to complete as many laps as possible, but this second objective is inevitably compromised somewhat by needing to make many short runs punctuated by set-up changes.”

“Obviously, we’re very pleased to complete the day without any major difficulties to the car after such a troubled start here last week.”

Romain will return to the track tomorrow morning, with the session kicking off at 09h00 CET.