Adrian Sutil was back in the VJM04 today for the second day of the Jerez test, and completed 73 laps as Force India did tyre compound evaluations and some performance work.
The new car, launched on Tuesday, ran reliably throughout the day, which pleased Sutil. “Today was really the start of testing for us as yesterday was principally a shakedown to make sure the systems all worked correctly,” the German noted. “It went well, with a lot of laps completed. The car has a good balance and I think for the first real day of running we did a reasonable lap time.
“We had a reoccurrence of yesterday’s problems with the floor and we know what the issue is, but to get a permanent fix we’ll have to go back to the factory. I’m already looking forward to seeing how it goes in Barcelona with the KERS and the moveable rear wing, which should both give some extra performance.”
Dominic Harlow, circuit engineering director, was also pleased with how the first real day of testing the new car had gone. “A productive second day with the VJM04, with Adrian running all the available tyre compounds, carrying out some aerodynamic tests and just starting to look at setup of the car,” he summarised. “There were no major reliability issues aside from a couple of sensors. That is encouraging, also good to see was a general improvement in laptime as we started to understand the car better despite the circuit probably dropping off a bit this afternoon.”
Paul di Resta gets his first chance to drive the VJM04 tomorrow.
