Stefano Coletti has stressed that lap times in this week’s F1 test do not display the individual performances of the rookie drivers, as each team was deeply engrossed in its own development programme. The Monegasque driver was first in action for Toro Rosso on Tuesday, before spending a further morning in the car on Thursday.
The three-day Young Driver event at Yas Marina was topped on all days by the Red Bull Racing car of France’s Jean-Éric Vergne, perhaps underlining the rapid pace the Champion team has demonstrated all season-long. Coletti, however, is completely sure that no accurate conclusions can be drawn from the overall results.
“It was good, we had a lot of testing to do,” 22-year-old Coletti told GPUpdate.net. “We never did a performance run, only aero and tyre testing, and we were testing a lot of new things. The team was quite happy about my performance, how I handled it and my fitness, so it was quite a positive test.
“They never really did anything to improve the car for the driver; it was just a baseline and the car was completely different from one day to another, as they were changing one thing and then testing something else. It wasn’t about lap times, it was just about data acquiring for them and feedback from us.”
The GP2 driver is also pleased that his own abilities were depended on.
“Oh, yes, it is an amazing experience!” he continued. “I actually like the fact that the team trusted in me and asked me to do a lot a lot of complicated testing, asking for feedback. It’s good that they didn’t set up the car to be fast, with Super Soft tyres on, to try and do a good lap time. They were actually using my help to try and develop their own car for next year. When they make a change they expect good feedback; so I was part of the development for the 2012 car, which was good!”
When asked if drawing personal conclusions was possible, Coletti replied:
“You can’t read the times. You absolutely can’t. I never had a car set up to do a lap time, it wasn’t about that. The test was not about driver performance – it was about testing the cars and developing them. They wanted as much consistency as you could give them. If you put everything together for a lap time, you would be able to go a lot, lot quicker, but that wasn’t the point of the test.”
After spending Thursday night in Abu Dhabi, Coletti is flying back to Nice on Friday before returning home to Monte Carlo.
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| Pos. | Driver | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  J. Vergne | 01:38.917 | 46 |
| 2. | S. Bird | 01:40.897 | 104 |
| 3. | J. Bianchi | 01:41.347 | 106 |
| 4. | O. Turvey | 01:41.513 | 89 |
| 5. | M. Chilton | 01:41.575 | 79 |
| 6. | E. Gutiérrez | 01:42.049 | 77 |
| 7. | M. Bortolotti | 01:43.277 | 74 |
| 8. | K. Ceccon | 01:43.686 | 35 |
| 9. | A. Rossi | 01:44.283 | 74 |
| 10. | J. Charouz | 01:44.470 | 82 |
| Full results | |||
| Stefano Coletti | |||
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| More Stefano Coletti photos | |||
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