Kimi Raikkonen, the Lotus F1 Team driver completed in the two days of private practice no less than 666 km, on the Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia. He completed 80 laps on the first day of training and an additional 91 laps in the second day summing an impressive number of 171 laps which gave us a total of 666km, more than two grand prix distance.
The Lotus driver said after the two training days: “It went well today and overall the two days have been helped me a lot. Even though I was using a two year-old car and the Pirelli demonstration tires, I learnt about working with the team and the engineers which means I can focus on the new car once we get to Jerez for the first official test. It was great to be driving an F1 car again and from that respect I feel very positive.”
Also Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Engineer of Lotus added: “We enjoyed another good day with Kimi in Valencia. The morning was spent doing setup work in particular with front and rear cambers. In the afternoon we ran very low fuel qualifying simulations with two new sets of tires followed by a 27 lap run starting with a full tank of fuel. Kimi’s pace improved from yesterday as we would expect and we completed several start, pitstop and clutch simulations. We were even able to finish early as we completed our programme ahead of time. Overall it has been a productive and valuable two days.”
Here are some high-def pictures from the testing days, all images (C) Lotus F1:
