As said in a previous report last week, the Bahrain meeting did not go down as smooth as initially planned, as a few sandstorms have interrupted and delayed the testing at one point. Romain Grosjean made his return to Pirelli testing after his initial outing at Monza, and will completely replace De la Rosa in the Italian tire maker's programme starting January 1st.
“I think this goes to show that, wherever you are in the world, uncertain weather can arrive in a variety of forms,” said Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery after the test. “But Formula 1 is all about expecting the unexpected, and we were able to quickly react to these changing circumstances by extending our test.”
“With the extra time we had, we were probably able to put in a little bit more work than we had originally planned, so everything worked out very well in the end.”
“We ran through our entire dry tyre range, and to have reached the point where we are at now, just five months after the F1 tires ran for the very first time at Mugello in August, is an incredible testimony to the commitment and capability shown by every member of our team.”
“We ran two drivers in order to compare two different sets of feedback, and the fact that they were both saying the same positive things at the end of the test only underlines the progress that we have made. There's still some work to do, but we can head into 2011 with confidence.”
The month of January will be a full one for Pirelli, as they have two more tests scheduled in Bahrain (9-10) and Abu Dhabi (15-18), before the official F1 testing season kicks off in Valencia on February 1st.
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