Paul di Resta had his first chance to test the new Force India VJM04 today in Jerez, completing 64 laps on the third day of the second pre-season test.
The Scot continued the testing programme from where team-mate Adrian Sutil finished yesterday, concentrating on tyre evalution and establishing base-line set-ups.
However, as di Resta discusses, the day did not pass completely without incident. “We’ve still got a bit of work to do, but today was about determining the right way to go,” he said. “We did find that there were a couple of issues with getting temperature in the brakes on some set-ups, and on the final run of the day I locked up into turn nine and went off into the gravel. Overall I think we can be fairly positive with the progress we’ve made over the past couple of days and have a good idea of where we can go tomorrow.”
Circuit engineering director Dominic Harlow said that Di Resta’s mistake only cost them a few laps of running time today, and explained what his driver would be focusing on tomorrow – the final day of this test. “We continued to learn about the car [today], and found some good and some bad directions,” he said. “Unfortunately Paul locked the brakes at T9 on his final outing and had a small spin. There wasn’t any damage but with another red flag almost immediately afterwards there wasn’t time to continue so we missed a few laps.
“Tomorrow Paul will conclude the test, taking the opportunity to try the DRS [drag reduction system] rear wing in simulated race mode during the morning and further set-up work planned for the afternoon.”
