Lotus Renault GP progresses at its own pace

The Lotus stable Renault GP is employing a new working method during these Barcelona tests, the English team having decided to run its two drivers alternately each day, and no longer by devoting a daily program to one of the two as was the case in weeks passed. As a result, Nick Heidfeld and Vitaly Petrov completed 41 and 61 laps respectively yesterday, Saturday February 19, the German driver nevertheless showing himself to be 2″6 faster than his Russian teammate…

La car R31 is obviously not content with lining up the laps to test its reliability, it is already integrating some developments, including in particular new elements of its water cooling system. The team also admits to being satisfied with the resolution of certain problems seen last week in Jerez.

Saturday's program then focused on understanding the new tie-rod suspension, in order to make the Pirelli tires work better. Nevertheless, Vitaly Petrov complains about the track conditions: “After losing a lot of running time on Friday, it was nice to be back in the car this Saturday. We have found new tuning options that allow us to better understand how the tires work. But it is cold in Barcelona, ​​unlike Jerez, and it is therefore difficult to get the tires up to temperature. Despite everything, we learned a lot during short runs.”

Nick Heidfeld continued: “The balance of the car was not as good as at Jerez, but we were able to improve it at the end of the day. We lost a little time at the start of the afternoon (…). We need to do more kilometers because we still have a lot of things to try on our program, especially around the car set-up.”

The tests will continue today, Sunday, and will end on Monday February 21.

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