Sergio Perez got his first experience of the new Sauber C30 on a wet track this morning in Barcelona before going on to complete a race simulation in the dry this afternoon.
In total, the Mexican completed 115 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya, and was pleased with how the day had gone.
“Although the track conditions were not so good in the beginning, it was a positive day,” he said. “We did some long runs, and we were able to collect a lot of information on the tyres. I learnt a lot, and I'm happy how things went today.”
Technical director James Key was pleased to have Perez back in the car and said that, but for a rear wing problem, the team’s day was largely trouble-free.
“It was a bit of a compromised day with the conditions this morning, which were both wet and cold, and it took quite some time to dry out,” said Key. “However, it allowed us to use both the wet and intermediate tyre again and to evaluate how the set-up needs to be changed from dry to wet with the Pirelli tyres.
“In the afternoon we ran a race simulation with three stints. Sergio put in some consistent lap times first on the hard, then the medium and finally the hard compound again. Unfortunately we had a problem with the rear wing so we had to bring him in. Apart from this, it was another trouble free day with many laps that allowed us to gather a lot of data.
“Tomorrow we will concentrate more on further set-up work and some test items we want to use on the final day.”
Sergio Perez will be back in the car tomorrow for the fourth and final day of the Barcelona test.
