Robert Kubica took to the track for the first time in 2011 in the new Lotus Renault R31 yesterday in Valencia. Following Vitaly Petrov on Tuesday, the aim of Kubicas run on Wednesday was making sure he was comfortable with a new steering wheel layout (no doubt due to the extra buttons), assessing the performance of the aerodynamic package using Flow Viz paint and also gathering data on the Pirelli tyres. Having completed 104 laps, posting the 5th fastest time of the day, Kubica spoke to the press:Kubica: "“It’s always difficult to judge things after just one day in the car, especially with so many changes compared to last year. The main factor is definitely the new Pirelli tyres, which have a big influence on how the car behaves and we ran on some of the different compounds to start getting a feeling for them. We did have a couple of mechanical issues with the car and we couldn’t complete the entire programme, but we still did lots of laps. This is very important because we managed to complete a lot of the usual system and reliability checks needed with a new car and made sure there were no overheating issues.”
Following the days running technical director James Allison was also pleased with the days results. "The KERS and DRS Wing (moveable rear wing) worked flawlessly" he said, also mentioning that doing so many laps enabled them to do some set up work for the car in addition to the normal pre-season programme.
All quotes with kind permission of Lotus Renault GP.
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