Thursday, March 12, 2009

Villa sets record pace in Ricard test

Villa sets record pace in Ricard test

Super Nova's Javier Villa set a new GP2 lap record at Paul Ricard on the opening day of the first pre-season test.

The Spaniard, who has switched to Super Nova after three years with Racing Engineering, was quickest in both the morning and afternoon sessions, with his time of 1:11.930 after lunch breaking Romain Grosjean's previous record by 0.101 seconds.

Returnee Lucas di Grassi was second quickest today, 0.149 seconds down on Villa's time in his debut run with Racing Engineering.

GP2 Asia points leader Kamui Kobayashi completed the top three for DAMS, ahead of Campos Racing's Romain Grosjean and ART's Pastor Maldonado.

The test was the first chance for the teams to try the GP2 Dallara-Renault's new engine, which offers an additional 25bhp and an improved power curve.

Series technical director Didier Perrin was satisfied with the new package's performance.

"We are very pleased with today's results," he said. "They confirm our predictions regarding the gain of performance we were expecting with the new engine. Moreover, we did not suffer from any serious reliability issues."

Day one combined testing times:

Pos Driver Team Time 1. Javier Villa Super Nova 1:11.930 2. Lucas di Grassi Racing Engineering 1:12.079 3. Kamui Kobayashi DAMS 1:12.140 4. Romain Grosjean Campos 1:12.262 5. Pastor Maldonado ART 1:12.270 6. Andreas Zuber Fisichella 1:12.300 7. Alberto Valerio Piquet 1:12.439 8. Luca Filippi Super Nova 1:12.481 9. Davide Valsecchi Durango 1:12.509 10. Jerome d'Ambrosio DAMS 1:12.574 11. Edoardo Mortara Arden 1:12.607 12. Roldan Rodriguez Piquet 1:12.742 13. Diego Nunes iSport 1:12.774 14. Vitaly Petrov Campos 1:12.893 15. Nico Hulkenberg ART 1:13.010 16. Dani Clos Racing Engineering 1:13.138 17. Sergio Perez Arden 1:13.182 18. Giedo van der Garde iSport 1:13.221 19. Karun Chandhok Ocean 1:13.356 20 Davide Rigon Trident 1:13.362 21. Hamad Al Fardan Trident 1:13.477 22. Luiz Razia Fisichella 1:13.584 23. Michael Herck DPR 1:13.788 24. Nelson Panciatici Durango 1:13.860 25. Giacomo Ricci DPR 1:14.961 26. Alvaro Parente Ocean

  • Five-run second propels Dodgers
  • Di Grassi leads the way at Paul Ricard
  • Best-of-seven series a better test
  • Kobayashi on top in Paul Ricard test
  • No comments: