Bahrain I, Day 3: Lotus F1 test report

Pastor Maldonado completed his first day of testing in the E22 at the Bahrain International Circuit today with 26 timed laps completed in an interrupted day of running. His best time was 1min 39.642secs.

Pastor Maldonado will drive tomorrow for the final day of this week’s test.

Pastor Maldonado:

“It’s great to complete my first day of testing with the team, even if we didn’t get the number of laps we’d want. The car feels good with what we’ve done so far and it’s great to be working with everyone in the garage. It’s all been very easy from that side of things and I know I’m going to work well with everyone through the year. We had some problems today, but we hope that tomorrow will be better. I can’t wait for some more laps.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director:

“We started the day with a promising morning. Pastor settled in very quickly and we were able to make some progress with the car. Unfortunately, in the afternoon we had a number of gearbox related problems. Renault have made good progress with the software and Energy Store so we are headed in the right direction in that regards. We have identified the issue related to our gearbox and we have parts on their way from Enstone. Given the distance they have to travel, we may not be out first thing tomorrow, but we expect to be able to make further progress once we do take to the track.”