01/03/2017
NEWS STORY
Sahara Force India test driver, Alfonso Celis, had a solid day behind the wheel of the VJM10 as the team continued its development plan ahead of the new season.
Alfonso Celis: "It was a busy day in which we managed to complete nearly everything in our plan. These cars are completely different and I enjoyed my first experience of the new regulations - you can really feel the step up in performance. It took me a bit of time to get used to the car and the conditions, and the track had very low grip early on. I did a lot of aero passes in the morning and then we focussed on understanding the tyres in the afternoon. The most important objective of the day was to give the team as much data as possible so these 71 laps will hopefully be very useful for better understanding this car."
Tom McCullough, Chief Race Engineer: "Another solid day of work in Barcelona as Alfonso drove the VJM10 for the first time. Track temperatures were very low for the first couple of hours so we focussed on an aero mapping with various instruments fitted to the side of the car. We made a floor change during the lunch hour and worked through a set-up programme in the afternoon. Alfonso ran on several different tyre compounds - ultrasoft, supersoft and soft - giving us feedback and data on the new 2017 tyres."