Day 2 Update

12.02.2009

Day 2 Update

So today we got into a little bit more serious testing of some things that the team is working on for the future, taking into consideration what both Paul and I had learned yesterday as somewhat of a baseline and going from there. I didnt end up running a massively quick time, but I was really happy with how things went because of the circumstances. I ended up running my best time in an engine conservation mode that didnt allow for maximum power, but had some seriously encouraging data that Ill mention later on. Ill be back in the car tomorrow morning so Im looking forward to continuing to work on things with the team, and bringing things together on the final day.

Paul went out in the morning and started working through the program for the day, setting what was then the second or third fastest overall time on his best run, generally feeling happy with the car. Both of us are fighting a bit of instability entering the slower corners, but other than that, things tend to vary just based on the settings at the time. A bit of rain came through just after Paul got out, but didnt last long and we got on with the day.

I hopped in at around two oclock, and for the first three runs we tried a different brake setup to see if there was anything to gain from it. We had quite a difficult time making it work, so unfortunately didnt end up making much progress through those runs but, as always, thats what testing is for, right? We went back to what Paul had been running in the morning and what I had run yesterday to get back up to speed. We were facing a bit of a time crunch at that stage and wanted to get a longer run in by the end of the day, so we hurried to get through the rest of the program. Unfortunately for the lap time, I ended up running my quickest laps in a particularly conservative engine mode which was figured to be worth quite a bit of speed, but on the positive side, I was extremely quick in the high speed sections of the track. I was still having a bit of trouble with stability entering the corners which was a limiting factor in the slower corners, but I felt like that is something that we can surely figure out. For me, even just personally, it was very important to get to the point that I was actually getting a lot out of the car in the quick stuff because I figured that to be my biggest challenge coming into the test. My general thoughts were that if I could maximize the high speed corners where this car is going to be particularly capable, I can sort the rest out like I might with any other car. I felt like today I absolutely accomplished that.

All in all, there were a lot of things today that gave me a tremendous amount of confidence purely in my ability to drive the car, so Im extremely happy about that. Its hard not to be slightly frustrated by the fact that I know that I could be further up the time sheets, but there have also been some definitive hurdles through both days so far. My general comfort level driving the car has gone up drastically, and I think that I can definitely keep digging deeper to continue to figure things out. Im due to run in the morning tomorrow, so hopefully the weather holds off and we can get some good running in. Its been an incredible experience so far, and Im looking forward to getting more and more out of it tomorrow.