Lotus Barcelona test II - Day 3 report

Lotus F1 Team had a curtailed day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona today, with steering issues in the morning and rain in the afternoon limiting track time to 43 laps

Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus Renault F1 Team

Photo by: xpb.cc

Kimi was at the wheel of the E20 in Barcelona for the first time today as the final week of pre-season testing nears its conclusion. It wasn’t all plain sailing for the Finnish driver though, as investigations into a power steering issue which eventually lead to a steering rack change ruled out the majority of running time during the morning.

Coupled with a sudden outburst of rain later in the day, the team was restricted to a short window in which to rack up the laps. Nonetheless Kimi was pleased to be back at the wheel, and is looking forward to putting some distance under his wheels tomorrow:

“It was good to get in the E20 after missing testing last week. We had an issue with the power steering in the morning then we didn’t run in the wet, so it was quite a short time for me in the car today. At least we got some runs. The car was reliable when on track meaning we gained some good data for the team. Hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow and we can complete more laps.”

Despite the stop-start nature of the day, Trackside Operations Director Alan Permane was pleased with the improvement in balance shown from the E20 over the course of the session, which will give the team valuable data heading into the final run here in Spain tomorrow:

“Aside from the time we lost early on it was clear that we were running a different programme from the other teams today. We were hampered by power steering issues in the morning, which took some time to rectify. Once on track, we steadily improved the car balance through the day. We opted not to run in the rain which meant we completed fewer laps today than would otherwise have been the case.”

Kimi will complete the final day of pre-season testing tomorrow, working on both car set-up and a race simulation. Weather permitting, the session will begin at 09:00 local time.