Lotus labelled its second day of running at the Circuit de Catalunya as a 'far more productive' affair, with Romain Grosjean getting the opportunity to debut a new rear suspension layout on the E21 chassis before completing slick tyre runs.
After an interrupted opening day, a longer dry spell on Friday allowed Grosjean to complete meaningful laps on both the Medium and Soft tyres, with Trackside Operations Director Alan Permane seeing positive signs from the upgrades.
"Today was far more productive than yesterday," Permane explained. "We debuted a new rear suspension variation, working on initial set-up in the wet conditions this morning, then switched to dry tyres in the afternoon to gather further data on the Medium and Soft 2013 Pirelli compounds. Whilst circuit conditions are not as favourable as last week due to the recent rain, we were still able to show good pace and our initial findings from the new rear suspension are promising."
Although Friday was more successful, Permane admits that the Enstone-based team has 'plenty of work left' when Kimi Räikkönen takes over on the weekend.
"Over the next two days we will be working on the updates we have for the E21," he said of the team's final pre-season preparations. "There's plenty of work left to do and we're hoping that the forecasts for better weather over the weekend are correct."
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Formula 1
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Alan Permane
Romain Grosjean
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Lotus Renault
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| Pos. | Driver | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  R. Grosjean | 01:22.716 | 88 |
| 2. | J. Button | 01:23.181 | 72 |
| 3. | P. Maldonado | 01:23.628 | 75 |
| 4. | S. Vettel | 01:23.743 | 65 |
| 5. | N. Hulkenberg | 01:23.744 | 79 |
| 6. | A. Sutil | 01:24.215 | 62 |
| 7. | D. Ricciardo | 01:25.483 | 61 |
| 8. | M. Chilton | 01:25.598 | 75 |
| 9. | G. van der Garde | 01:26.316 | 48 |
| 10. | N. Rosberg | 01:26.655 | 120 |
| Full results | |||
| Romain Grosjean | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| More Romain Grosjean photos | |||
| Alan Permane | |||
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| More Alan Permane photos | |||
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