Day 1 saw the teams take to a track made dusty by a sand storm that had struck the circuit the day before and the drivers only completed a handful of laps as the asphalt was too slippery for any real lessons to be learned. Despite this, both Racing Engineering drivers were amongst the fastest runners with Nathanaël finishing fifth and Dani Clos sixth. The afternoon session was extended by an hour to make up for the lack of track time in the morning and both drivers continued to get used to the new car with Nathanaël Berthon the faster of the two although, due to the fact that the track was still slippery, Dani Clos and the Racing Engineering team decided to concentrate on working on the aerodynamic set-up of the car and no attempt was made to set a quick time.

Day 2’s morning session was delayed an hour by fog and once the drivers took to the track both Clos and Berthon were soon on the pace and, although the session had to be red-flagged three times, both drivers finished in the top ten less than a second away from the fastest time. The afternoon session was stopped 15 minutes early due to an accident meaning that most drivers missed out on running new tyres at the end to set a good time. Despite this setback Dani Clos was once again in the top ten only 0.9 seconds away from the fastest time.

Day 3 saw a new shorter configuration for the Yas Marina track in use and it will be this layout that will be the setting for Thursday’s opening round of the 2011 Asia GP series. The work carried out by Racing Engineering proved to have paid off when Dani Clos set the third fastest time in a very competitive session that saw the top ten drivers separated by less than a second. Nathanaël Berthon continued to learn about GP2 racing and showed he was progressing well as he set a time only 0.8 seconds away from Clos. In the afternoon Clos was once again amongst the best as he was just 0.2 seconds away from the fastest time in fifth.

Day 4 saw the shorter circuit in use again and as before the times were incredibly close with less than 0.7 seconds between first and tenth fastest. Once again Dani Clos was in the top ten with 8th fastest time, half a second behind the fastest driver. In the afternoon most of the teams went for a race simulation, for almost two hours Dani Clos held the fastest time and, after competing 38 laps the second highest achieved, the young Spaniard was once again in the top ten.

The four days of testing has shown that it looks as if the 2011 GP2 Asia series will be very competitive with seven different drivers taking the fastest time in the eight test sessions and in every session the times were incredibly close throughout the field. Most importantly the Racing Engineering team were continuously amongst the fastest runners and it is clear that Dani Clos will be one of the favourites for victory come race day. Nathanaël Berthon has been consistently quick as he came to terms with competing amongst some of the quickest drivers in the world outside of Formula 1. Most importantly Racing Engineering has learnt a lot about the new Dallara and both the team and its two drivers are sure there is more to come.

TEAM QUOTES