Two days of intense testing at Barcelona’s Montmeló circuit saw Spain’s Racing Engineering team continue to increase their knowledge of the 2011 Dallara chassis and its Pirelli tyres.

Following on from their very positive testing at Silverstone two weeks ago, where both Christian Vietoris and Dani Clos finished in the top four fastest times, both the team and the drivers were looking forward to continuing to develop their understanding of the new 2011 GP2 package. For these two days a new Pirelli tyre compound was provided to the GP2 teams to try which meant the development of a new set-up to get the best from the tyre.
Tuesday morning saw the two Racing Engineering cars take to the track in  warm, sunny weather as both Vietoris and Clos carried out a series of installation laps and then began to learn about the new compound and what changes to their set-ups would be necessary. At the end of the session Vietoris finished in 17th position with Clos 21st as both drivers began to fine tune their cars. For the afternoon session the drivers continued their hard work as they both began to become more familiar with the Pirellis and at the end of the day Vietoris finished in 10th and Clos 20th.

The morning session of day 2 saw the weather continue dry and sunny and it was clear that the Racing Engineering team had successfully worked on the set up of their two cars as both Vietoris and Clos began to substantially reduce their lap times from the previous day. The young German reduced his best time by over a second to finish in 7th place, less than 0.2 seconds away from the fastest time whilst the Spaniard trimmed 0.7 seconds from his best time in 17th.

The final afternoon session saw generally slower times as the session was red flagged three times in the last 30 minutes interrupting the drivers’ concentration and ruining many fastest laps. Vietoris and Clos finished in 13th and 18th places respectively as the chequered flag fell on the final test before the racing starts in earnest.

The focus for Racing Engineering is now the first round of the 2011 GP2 Series to be held at the Istanbul circuit on the 6th to 8th of May and, after the hard work carried out, both the team and its drivers are confident that they are ready to win in this most competitive of Series.

Christian Vietoris: "These two test days didn't start off as planned. With the new tyre compound our base set-up didn't work as well as at Silverstone. But the work done was really good and we made a big step from day 1 to day 2. It was really a pleasure to work like this. We knew we were behind and were all working really hard; we sat down, studied the data and made a big step forward. I was only 0.2 seconds behind in the end, and I think we have a good base to further improve from there. I am very satisfied with today's work and our progress from day 1 to day 2 was really good."

Dani Clos: "Well, these two test days were quite productive. I think we are working into the right direction. We were able to gain lots of valuable insights and to make positive as well as negative conclusions. But I think we are arriving in Turkey with a very positive mentality, a lot of motivation and I trust in myself as well as in my team."

Thomas Couyotopoulo, Sporting Director: "We had two challenging test days in Barcelona. The weather conditions were good, and the new factor brought in was a new tyre compound. It was the first time we worked with this compound and the base set-up, successfully used during the Silverstone test, needed to be adapted to the tyres as well as to our extensive testing program. The goal was to prepare the upcoming season as well as possible and we have been able to gather a lot of information during these two days and will be busy with its analysis. The team has worked hard in adapting to the new situation and we are concluding this test in Barcelona on a positive note."