James Calado quickest on Day 2 in Barcelona

ART Grand Prix driver finishes second day of pre-season test on top

The 2012 GP2 Series best rookie James Calado was the quickest man today on a damp Circuit de Catalunya in this morning’s session with a laptime of 1:50.218. Johnny Cecotto topped the timesheet in the afternoon a shy nine hundredth away from Calado.

The second day of GP2 Series pre-season testing opened this morning in cold temperatures as the rain poured down. The drivers put their wet weather Pirelli tyres to good use as soon as the green light flashed in the pitlane. Daniel Abt was the early pace setter for ART Grand Prix, but it was his teammate Calado who set the record straight and put in a laptime of 1:50.218 ahead of Felipe Nasr whose best efforts put him sixth tenths away from the Brit. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs ended another seven tenths behind the Brazilian. Behind the top three, Rene Binder, Abt, Mitch Evans, Tom Dillmann, Marcus Ericsson, Cecotto and Kevin Giovesi rounded up the top ten. The session was briefly red flagged twice, first when Abt went off track and clipped the barrier at turn 4 putting a premature end to his morning’s endeavours. The second red flag was issued when Cecotto also went wide at Turn 4 in the closing minutes of the session.

The rain held off during the lunch break and hopes were high that we would see a dry afternoon session just as we did yesterday. Simon Trummer set the early pace for Rapax, but his time was bettered by one tenth by Quaife-Hobbs in the opening hour. Unfortunately, the weather gods had decided that today would not be a dry one and the rain picked up again. A first red flag halted the proceedings as Riccardo Agostini stopped at turn 4. The session resumed and Quaife-Hobbs remained top. Two more red flags appeared when Julian Leal first went wide and into the gravel bed, and when Rene Binder ran off at turn 7.

Cecotto found some extra pace in the final hour to claim the top spot in a 1:52.781. No one could better that time. In the dying minutes and after a late red flag courtesy of Abt again who stopped at turn 4, Calado and Nasr put their head down to claim P2 and P3 respectively. Giovesi, Quaife-Hobbs, Trummer, Daniel De Jong, Stefano Coletti and Dillmann rounded up to the top ten.

The final day of testing will start tomorrow at 9am local time. The weather forecast expects a dry day.

source: GP2 Series

Caterham Racing

• T02 Barcelona – Day 2
• Circuit de Catalunya, Spain – Wednesday 6th February 2013
• Drivers: Ma Qing Hua & Sergio Canamasas

Rain was the order of the day once again for the penultimate day of GP2 pre-season testing in Barcelona and both drivers experimented with setup changes on wet tyres.

The team had no intention of chasing times and were satisfied with the data gathering and gaining valuable feedback from both drivers.

At the chequered flag, Canamasas clocked up thirty nine laps and Ma, fifty five.

Caterham Racing Team Manager Phill Spencer: “We have achieved some valuable setup work today and completed further pit stop practice, which is beneficial for both the team and drivers. We made the most of the conditions as all the teams did and now look forward to the final day of pre season testing tomorrow, which we hope will be dry.”

Caterham Racing Chief Engineer Humphrey Corbett: “The track remained wet for the duration of the day and as we are restricted to three sets of wet tyres, we completed today’s track activity with one set on each car. At times setup changes were masked by varying track conditions and tyre graining, which meant our findings were limited, but this will have been the case for the whole paddock.”

“We have two intact cars and now look forward to the promise of some dry running tomorrow, where we will use our allocation of hard and soft Pirelli tyres. The comparison between the two tyres will be vital as these are the compounds to be used in the first races of the Championship.”

Sergio Canamasas: “We expected drier conditions today and so it was a bit of a surprise to me this morning. There is still work to do on the car and with my driving, but as we only used one set of tyres today I am ok with the result. We hope that tomorrow is dry, so that we can get a good session on the new tyres. We have collected lots of data and had more wet experience, but track conditions were not ideal.”

Ma Qing Hua: “Today has been a strange day for me, as I struggled to find grip but I think this will come to me with more experience. We made lots of setup changes and I am becoming more confident in the car with each lap. I was pleased to drive 55 laps of the circuit and tomorrow it would be great if I can drive the circuit in dry conditions.”

source: caterham-racing.com