31/03/2010
NEWS STORY
Status Grand Prix drivers Daniel Morad and Robert Wickens filled two positions in the Top Six of the afternoon timesheets as the GP3 Series teams embarked on the second official test sessions at the Paul Ricard HTTT circuit in southern France today.
On a day of sunny, dry conditions, the team successfully worked through a series of set-up programmes, as its three Renault-powered Dallara cars covering over 1000 kilometres before new Pirelli tyres were bolted on at the end of the day to set a quick time.
Canadian Robert Wickens, fresh off the back of announcing his deal to drive with Status GP for the full 2010 season, ended the day fourth fastest. Lebanon's Daniel Morad had been in the top five until he was knocked down to sixth in the dying moments of the day, but the GMH Motorsport-supported driver was encouraged with his time of 1m21.2s that indicated his strong potential for the season ahead in the GP3 Series, which runs on the support bill of Formula One™ Grands Prix across Europe.
Ivan Lukashevich, who is a part of the Marussia Motors Driver Development programme, continued his rapid progress in adapting to the 280bhp GP3 Series car, going half a second quicker than he did in the previous test at Paul Ricard, despite a radiator problem curtailing his fastest run on new tyres at the end of the day.
Status GP team manager, Simon Cayzer: We had a good, solid day, with all three cars running reliably. The first test here three weeks ago was all about the initial learning curve and ironing out the teething problems of a new car. Now we've been able to work on performance and make progress.
Daniel Morad: Overall, it was very positive. We had no major issues today, and made good progress in finding a nice balance with the car. At the end of the day I made a small mistake on my final run that lost a little bit of time, so it's encouraging there's still room for improvement.
Ivan Lukashevich: The positive point is our speed is improving, and we tried a lot of different settings. I'm still understanding the car, and working with different downforce levels. We want to be further up the timesheets, but I did my time on old tyres and we're headed in the right direction.
Robert Wickens: It's been a fairly productive day. We got through a lot of our test programme, even with small technical problems either side of lunch. It's nice to be in the top five – we're in the fight but there's still a lot of work to be done.