9 February 2012

Romain Grosjean second fastest of the day

Romain Grosjean made his E20 debut on the third day of testing at Jerez, setting the fastest lap time in the morning, and second fastest of the day. Romain’s 1min 18.419secs lap was achieved during the course of a trouble-free 117 laps.

Fast facts:

Track: Jerez, Spain, 4.4km
Chassis: E20-01
Weather: Sunny, air 0-14°C, track 7-26°C
Programme: System checks, temperature monitoring, data correlation, evaluation of the performance of the car with its initial aerodynamic package.
Laps Completed: 117
Classification: 2nd, 1’18"419.
Interruptions: Run out of fuel on final lap, intentionally to test fuel pickup.
What’s next? Romain Grosjean will continue in the E20 tomorrow.

Romain Grosjean, Lotus F1 Team Race Driver: “I am one of the happiest guys in the world right now. It’s been a really good day for me. We were fastest in the morning then we completed some longer runs in the afternoon. It’s great to finally drive the car which I have seen coming together and being built at Enstone. Working so well with all the mechanics and the engineers made it such a memorable first day in the E20. The car feels good on different fuel loads and tyre compounds we used. For sure there’s margin for improvement in the tests ahead, but it’s a great start to the year.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “Another strong day with 117 laps and over 500 km completed. We ran a similar programme to the one we ran during the previous two days with Kimi. This gives us good data across a range of scenarios and valid comparisons between our drivers. Track conditions were better today, with more rubber down and less wind than yesterday. We conducted set-up work on the medium compound tyre in the morning. Some of these were set-ups we ran with Kimi, others were new. In the afternoon we focused on getting as many laps completed as possible to test the reliability of the E20, which proved to be faultless.”