| The first day of testing at Jerez proved to be an ideal one for Racing Engineering with Swiss driver Fabio Leimer being fastest in both the morning and afternoon sessions. Leimer had ended the 2011 GP2 Series on a high by finishing second to Racing Engineering’s Christian Vietoris in the final race of the season at Monza and it was clear that his confidence was high as he took to the track today for his first run in a Racing Engineering chassis.
Conditions for the morning session were ideal with sunny skies and a slight wind, all 27 drivers running today would be using the Pirelli P Zero hard compound tyres.
Leimer was amongst the quickest drivers from the start and with thirty minutes of the session left to run he set the fastest time so far 0.1 seconds ahead of the very experienced Filippi. A little time was lost with a red flag incident but despite the best efforts of Filippi, Bird and Cecotto Leimer’s time of 1:27.282 would remain unbeaten.
The second Racing Engineering car was in the hands of Venezuelan Rodolfo González and he too was on the pace finishing the morning session in 15th place with a time of 1:28.443, just over a second slower than Leimer. Leimer continued his excellent work in the afternoon, once again taking the fastest time. Higher temperatures than the morning meant that times were a little slower and Leimer’s fastest lap, set in the last 30 minutes of the session, was 1:27.777, a tenth of a second faster than Buurman with Clos in third place. González continued to learn about driving the Racing Engineering car and finished the day in 17th with a time of 1:28.868. |
