Photo by: GP2 Media Service
Barcelona, Day 2: Scuderia Coloni Tops The Sheets With Coletti
Scuderia Coloni couldn’t hope for a better ending of the 2011 GP2 tests: In Barcelona the Italian team topped the sheets of the year’s last session thanks to Stefano Coletti posting a 1’30”679, more than one tenth better than the closest rival and nearly half a second faster than the third placed driver. The driver from Monaco, who made his return to the track after stopping for two months in order to recover from the back injury suffered in Spa, was already very quick in the morning when he posted the fifth best time of the session, but together with the team he decided to keep a set of fresh rubber for the afternoon in order to go again for performance, then making the most of the strategy by putting everybody else behind. Different program for Kevin Ceccon: the young Italian driver used both his new sets in the morning posting the sixth quickest time (just 0.02 far from Coletti). Then, in the afternoon, the 18 year-old Auto GP champion focused on long-runs with used tyres, giving the team a very good feedback both in terms of performance and consistency. Now the team will come back to the workshop, in order to get the cars ready for the GP2 Finale in Abu Dhabi.
Paolo Coloni: “We leave the 2011 GP2 testing knowing that we did a top-notch job. Both in Jerez and Barcelona we’ve been always on top, often on first row, and all our drivers managed to reach at least the top 5, something that no other team did. This, together with the results we achieved in the latter part of the season, clearly shows that we are heading the right way in our technical development and also that Ceccon, Clos, Coletti, Filippi and Onidi all did a great job with our staff. Now we have all the info we need to make the right choices for 2012, and we will be ready to fight right from Abu Dhabi”.
Stefano Coletti: “Today was a great day for me: with the Scuderia Coloni car I felt at ease straight out of the box and already early in the morning, when the track was still damp, I could push as hard as I wanted. I could have entered the top 3 easily there, but together with the team we decided to keep a set of new tyres for the afternoon, and as we posted the quickest laptime of this last session we can say it worked pretty well despite my back aching a bit. I’m still recovering, and after such a lengthy stop driving for two whole days was a big effort”.
Kevin Ceccon: “I’m really satisfied with our job today: in the morning we posted the sixth quickest lap of the two days, and just one tenth adrift from P3, so it was really fine. Then in the afternoon we started with race simulations: I did some pit-stop training, some starts, and two long-runs that went really great, both in terms of performance and consistency. I’m really happy of how quickly I’m getting acquainted with GP2, this gives me high hopes for Abu Dhabi”.
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