(Lotus F1 Team)
The Lotus F1 Team’s Mercedes powered E23 made its track
debut in Jerez on Monday as Pastor Maldonado completed 41 laps recording the 6th
fastest time of the day with a fastest time of 1m 25.802s.
(Lotus F1 Team)
The Venezuelan’s day was cut short however following a
drivetrain issue with the car. Speaking following his first day in the car,
Pastor Maldonado stated:
‘It was fantastic to get behind the wheel for the
first ever lap of this exciting new car. Even though it’s early days we
achieved a lot today. It was already exciting to feel the potential of the car
and I can’t wait to get back in the car tomorrow. We did stop running early,
but then it started to rain so everyone else came in too so it was not a big
drama. The car certainly looks fantastic and I know we have a lot of potential
for the season ahead.’
The Enstone based outfit missed out on a day of running on
Sunday after the late arrival of the new car to the Jerez circuit. The E23 was
fired up for the first time on Saturday afternoon before being shipped to the
Spanish circuit. Speaking about today’s running, Lotus F1 Team Technical
Director, Nick Chester said:
‘Seeing the E23 Hybrid on track for the first
time was very satisfying and we owe a great deal of thanks to everyone at
Enstone and everyone here at the circuit for the long hours which have been put
in recently. We also say thank you to our partners and suppliers for assisting
us with what has been a very ambitious build programme.
We had predicted that we’d probably just be
able to complete a couple of shakedown laps today, but thanks to some fantastic
work overnight we were able to run the car from this morning. The feedback from
Pastor has been positive at what is a very early stage in the car’s test programme.
We had a drivetrain issue this afternoon, but didn’t lose out on too much
running as it started raining shortly afterwards. We can’t wait to get back out
on track tomorrow.’
(Lotus F1 Team)
Maldonado will be back in the car on Tuesday before handing
over to team mate Romain Grosjean for the final day of testing in Jerez on
Wednesday.
(Lotus F1 Team)
© Ben Johnston 2015
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