Davide Valsecchi quickest on Day 2

Italian ace remains top in Jerez
 
Davide Valsecchi confirmed his good form setting the quickest laptime of Day 2 in the 2012 pre-season testing in Jerez. The DAMS driver clocked 1:24.783 in the morning session and left the rest of the field with the task to find the extra pace to try and close the gap with the mighty Italian.
 
The morning session was quickly interrupted by a red flag after rookie Felipe Nasr pushed the limits on cold tyres and ended up in the gravel bed. At the restart, Esteban Gutiérrez set the pace with a 1:26.625, but a second red flag stopped the proceedings again. This time, it was GP3 graduate Nigel Melker who lost control of his Ocean Racing car. His day ended prematurely following the damage done on his nachine after contact with the barrier.  When the track went live again, Max Chilton put in a good lap three tenths quicker than Gutiérrez and moved to P1. The quick duo from iSport then had their turn to shine at the top of the timesheet, Marcus Ericsson becoming the first driver to break the 1m26s barrier this week.
 
The lap after James Calado went quickest, his Mexican teammate improved again and reclaimed the position heading the timesheets. In what felt like a qualifying session for some drivers, it was Valsecchi who settled the argument, setting a blazing laptime of 1:24.967. He improved another two tenths for good measure and would remain unbeaten until the chequered flag. Gutiérrez held onto P2 ahead of Chilton, Stefano Coletti, Jolyon Palmer, Ericsson, Dani Clos, Fabio Onidi, Calado and Fabio Leimer.
 
The afternoon session was mostly about race simulations for the teams. Proceedings were stopped in the opening ten minutes after Tom Dillmann suffered from a gearbox problem which ended his programme with Ocean Racing. At the restart, Luiz Razia set the early pace ahead of Simon Trummer and Nasr. A second red flag interrupted the session: Nathanaël Berthon lost control of his Racing Engineering machine and stopped in the gravel bed.
 
The remainder of the session saw drivers doing long runs and Valsecchi topping the timesheets again with a laptime of 1:26.648. He stayed unchallenged for most of the afternoon. And just as Giedo van der Garde put his Caterham Racing car on top, a final red flag caused by Julian Leal whose machine stopped on the track in the dying minutes stopped the proceedings again. The session wasn’t restarted as the clock had counted down to zero, therefore preventing any further chance for drivers to improve on their lap times.
 
The final testing day in Jerez will resume tomorrow at 9am local time. Kevin Ceccon will replace Tom Dillmann at Ocean Racing whilst the Frenchman will move to Rapax swapping with Daniel de Jong.

source: GP2 Series

iSport

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source: isportinternational.com

Racing Eng.

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source: racing-engineering.com

Lotus ART GP2 team

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source: art-grandprix.com

Jerez, Spain – Day Two

Day two of testing in Jerez went according to plan for Caterham Racing today. Both drivers completed more laps than yesterday, whilst working to a different program the team tested the new Pirelli option tyres.

Giedo van der Garde was the man to beat this afternoon topping the timing sheets with a 1:25.893lap, following some set up changes made this morning. Rodolfo Gonzalez also made good progress but unfortunately his fastest lap was compromised when he was edged into the gravel by another car by mistake.

The third and final day of testing in Jerez takes place tomorrow 09:00 – 12:00hrs / 13:00 – 16:00hrs before GP2 head to Barcelona for the final three day pre-season test on 6th – 8th March.

Phill Spencer: “We have had a good day today with Giedo finishing the afternoon session in P1. Unfortunately Rodolfo got pushed onto the gravel on his fastest lap, but we know he is capable of more, so all in all I am really pleased for the team. The cars are running faultlessly and the work we did yesterday paid off as you can see from this afternoons standings, so we look forward to more of the same tomorrow. ”

Giedo van der Garde (Best Lap: 1:25.893 / Total laps: 52): “We are definitely moving in the right direction. We tried a lot of stuff yesterday and again this morning, but I think this mornings’ program was very beneficial to us and the progress we are seeing now is all very positive. Tonight we’ll have a good, long debrief and look where we can improve and hopefully we can make another step like this tomorrow.”

Rodolfo Gonzalez (Best Lap: 1:26.707 / Total laps: 61): “We worked on making some changes to the car balance this morning. After lunch we looked at data and set up and I adapted my driving style a little and changed a few more things on the car to suit me better and then we started to make slow progress, but progress nevertheless. Unfortunately on my second new tyre run I got pushed off track which ruined my best lap time, so we still have a lot of work to do. Giedo is strong at the moment, so we know what direction we need to go in. I have the team’s support and I know they will give me a good car, so I need to continue to improve to achieve the times we want.”

Humphrey Corbett: “We look better on the time sheets today in first and fourteenth position this afternoon and this is all part of the plan, although you never know what everyone else is doing but still I am very happy. We sacrificed some tyres yesterday to do our program today and its paid dividends. We have learnt a lot through our preparation and set up changes throughout today and it has come good with Giedo. It is unfortunate Rodolfo had a moment with another car on track which compromised his time, but we have lots of very useful data to look at and we will be ready to do it all again tomorrow. We plan to do lap times in the morning and long runs in the afternoon.”

source: caterham-racing.com

Barwa Addax

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source: addaxteam.com

SCUDERIA COLONI KEEPS MOMENTUM IN JEREZ

4TH PLACE FOR COLETTI, ONIDI 8TH

Another good day of testing for Scuderia Coloni in Jerez, where the Italian outfit took part in the second day of the GP2 collective test, the first event of the 2012 season. After yesterday’s stunning start, with the second place for Fabio Onidi and the ninth for Stefano Coletti, the team kept momentum and was again in the highest part of the timesheet after a very positive day.

Coletti posted the fourth quickest laptime of the whole day with a 1’25”358 that was just four tenths far from first place. An impressive showing from Stefano and the team especially considering that Scuderia Coloni was the only team that didn’t use the softer (and quicker) compound provided by Pirelli, preferring to keep working on the “prime” tyres.

It was a very positive day for Onidi also as Fabio ended the day with a 1’25”505 that put him in 8th place. Exactly as Coletti, also Onidi sticked to “prime” tyres as the team decide to keep all the “option” sets for tomorrow.

Like yesterday the team used the afternoon for some race simulations, and the technical staff was very happy with the pace boasted by both drivers.

Stefano Coletti: “Yesterday I was already very happy with the car, but today the team gave me a car that suited my driving style even better and so I could really push a lot with ease. Apart from my quick laps, I was really happy about the race simulations because our race pace was frankly impressive and we gathered a lot of useful data”.

Fabio Onidi: “Today was another very positive day for us. Maybe the laptime could have been a bit better, but on the technical side we did an amazing job. We tried a lot of different solutions, something that the team had never tested before, and some of them gave us some really good results both in race and qualifying trim. So tomorrow we will evaluate them with the softer compound avalaible and I’m confident that we’ll be really quick”.

source: scuderiacoloni.com

Ocean Racing

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source: oceanracingtech.com

Rapax

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source: rapaxteam.com

Super Nova

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source: supernova-racing.com

Dams

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source: dams.fr

Arden

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source: arden-motorsport.com

Carlin

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source: carlin.co.uk

Trident Racing

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source: tridentracing.it

Pirelli

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source: pirelli.com