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Testing report

Richelmi's comment after testing in Barcelona

Stéphane Richelmi: "The work has been done well during these six days and we look forward to finding ourselves on the grid of Sepang on March 23rd."

Stephane Richelmi

Photo by: GP2 Media Service

"Here you have my summary of the three last test days, at Montmelo, near Barcelona. The first two days on the Catalan circuit were complicated, with difficult weather conditions: rain, wind, cold.

The first morning, on a diluted track, I drove the car of DAMS for the first time in these conditions. The impressions were good because I was in the temporary top 5 with the 1st set of new tires.

Stephane Richelmi
Stephane Richelmi

Photo by: GP2 Media Service

Then we degraded to the 11th place because others put new tires. The track began to dry up in the afternoon so it was useless to use rain tires and impossible to exploit slicks until the last hour.

Thus we put a set of new tires ( Hard ) and I realized the 3rd best laptime, a tenth of Calado. Then others drivers put another set of tires and I fell to the 7th place.

The second day was completely in the rain and was complicated as usual in these conditions ! Our conclusion is that we got lost with the set-up ! It was also tough to put all the sectors together in the same lap.

The result were in consequence, not good. The last day of test,I arrived with,for my part and as some others, 6 new sets of tyres among which two Soft. Once the track was finally dry, we began with Hard tires and I realized a laptime of 1 ' 29 " 7 ; at a tenth of my team mate.

Others improved but we stay at the top of the classification before putting the Soft tires. I improved my laptime during my 1st lap of the 1st set but I found traffic in the last sector, so my 1 ' 29 " 4 could have been 3 tenth better. At a tenth only to the first one.

I did not improve then with the second set of Soft, once again blocked in the traffic. The afternoon was dedicated to the long relay to prepare the races. We have something to improve in Soft tires but otherwise the rhythm was good.

We have then finished all our set of new tires, by putting two trains of Hard within last quarter of an hour! Unfortunately as we had not been able to settle the car for higher temperature, we do not manage to appear in the first part of the classification.

The work has been done well during these six days and we look forward to finding ourselves on the grid of Sepang on March 23rd !! See you"

Stéphane Richelmi

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