Valsecchi: The highlight of my season

91 laps on the board meant a busy day for Lotus Third Driver Davide Valsecchi; who enjoyed his time in the E21 so much that he even sneaked in a few extra laps...

How was your day?

Today was the highlight of my season and I really enjoyed my time in the car. Everything seemed to be going well and I hope that I’ve been able to contribute to the team’s efforts ahead of the next race in Budapest. This morning we ran with the Device as we used it before here in Silverstone with Kimi, so we worked on improving it. Then in the afternoon we worked more on making comparisons between the hard and medium tyres with high fuel so we could understand better how they work.

How do the new tyres feel?

It wasn’t easy giving comparative feedback as I only ran for half a day in Barcelona using the original specification 2013 tyres. The data suggests that maybe the newer tyres are a little slower, but to be sure of that we would need one of the race drivers with the car in qualifying configuration. We weren’t in qualifying configuration and it was Davide Valsecchi and not Kimi or Romain today! My thoughts are that maybe they’re a little slower, but last a little longer; the engineers will be able to give you a better answer.

You had a minor radio issue during the day and the team struggled to call you in?

Today we completed all the jobs on the plan and I think I got some extra laps too. I did miss the pit board for a few laps when the team was trying to call me in. I stayed out until I thought they were going to throw the pit board at me, then I thought it was better that I came in!