Jerez Testing: Day two Force India
JR took over for the afternoon session and conducted a similar programmed of basic set up and evaluation of the VJM02 with a simulated 2010 fuel tank load. With colder conditions and light rain in the early part of the afternoon the 21-year-old American Indy Lights champion completed 49 laps with a best of 1:20.517.
JR will continue tomorrow morning, with Paul taking over in the afternoon.
Paul di Resta:
Yesterday the program was to get comfortable in the car and to see how everything worked. I was able to get to a reasonable level quite quickly after one run so I felt prepared and had progressed enough for the team to be able to use me to test some development items, which will of course help them in 2010. We had quite a structured program this morning of running back to back set-up for 2009 and 2010 and both long and short runs, but it went pretty well. I'm up to speed now and I understand what I can do to improve my own performance. Equally each run we are doing something different so I need to keep learning and giving feedback so the team can get the information they need too. I hope they feel they can use me now.
A full Q&A with Paul is available on http://media.forceindiaf1.com.
JR Hildebrand:
When we first started running we were testing different brake settings, which really didn't work very well for me. The first couple of runs were really spent working on that and then getting to grips with the track again, particularly as the grip had improved. Coming into this test I was concerned I wouldn't be able to maximize the high speed cornering of the car, but I was able to get the most out of the two high speed sections of the track so I was really happy with this progress. On the run I got the best time we were running on a particularly conservative engine setting so I was pretty satisfied, even if the lap time didn't really show on the timesheets. In terms of my comfort and confidence however both were way up today and I am actually really happy with how today went.
Dominic Harlow, chief race engineer:
We completed more than 100 laps between Paul and JR today to build on yesterday's positive start. We concentrated on looking more at the effects of 2010 regulation changes during today's test and that has produced some interesting results for us. A good effort from the team and the drivers today in executing the program and we look forward to continuing the test tomorrow. (press release)