Daly has most productive GP3 test – will miss opening practice at Long Beach

MAZDASPEED driver, Conor Daly had his most productive GP3 test this week in Barcelona, Spain. He ended up as the fastest team Carlin car with a 1:39:445, leaving him P13 for the session, 0.8 from the fastest time. Having been fastest in the wet session in Silverstone, England two weeks ago, this was the best dry session of the pre season testing so far. In addition to understanding the car at a higher level, Daly has had to alter his driving style considerable to start to unlock the cars true potential. In Barcelona, he also did his first full race distance test. He is the first to admit though that there is a lot to learn.

"There is so much to learn, the circuits, how to bring the tires up to temperature, how to achieve a qualifying set up and then the changes needed for a race set up and all of the learning has to be done in very short runs in order to manage tire wear", said Daly. "It's been difficult at times, difficult to wrap my head around so many moving parts and parameters but I'm glad I'm here and I'm glad I'm going through this learning period". Daly's first two races will be in Turkey, May 7th – 8th.

Will miss Long Beach first practice – cannot get an early enough flight

Daly will miss the opening round of Firestone Indy Lights practice on Friday at Long Beach. "Six weeks ago I had the option of missing the whole weekend by not even trying to make it back from Spain, or taking the gamble that the flights might not get in on time. Long Beach is such a mega Indy Car event that even if the gamble did not pay off and I had to miss the first session, I still wanted to be part of the weekend. I will spend time with my engineer, Chris Finch, Friday afternoon and also learn as much as possible from my team mates".

In a ten day spell between Alabama and Long Beach, Conor will be in a race car for nine of those ten days on two different continents.