Adrian Sutil took over testing duties for Force India on Day Three of the Barcelona test, completing 102 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya.
Rain in the morning allowed Sutil to try the wet and intermediate Pirelli tyres for the first time and the team continued to concentrate on set-up and evaluation of the moveable rear wing (or drag reduction system).
“A lot of laps again today, without any real reliability issues, so my second day of good driving in the car,” said the German. “The rain before the start of running gave us the chance to complete full laps on the wet tyres after only doing install laps on them with Paul (Di Resta) on Friday.
“As the track dried later on we moved over to the intermediate and then to the dries after lunch. We didn’t get the opportunity to try the supersoft tyres at the end of the day, which would have given us an improvement in lap time, but overall the balance is getting there and we know there’s a lot more to come from the car. The DRS [drag reduction system] is working well and we’re going in the right direction with everything we do now.”
Dominic Harlow, circuit engineering director, said that the overnight rain provided the team with a good opportunity to collect additional data, but hopes for better weather tomorrow, the final day of the Barcelona test.
“Wet conditions quite similar to day one this morning and we collected some useful data on both the wet and intermediate tyres,” he commented. “In the afternoon a dry programme allowed Adrian to compare the tyres and evolve the set-up. He covered a solid mileage and we’re expecting slightly better conditions tomorrow to conclude the test in a similar fashion.”
