The astons were limited to track time as a car crashed and got the hour long session for the astons reduced to 20 mins. They are running new tires and have not got used to them yet.
What's the excuse for the second session, Rick?!
I have an inside source, no not really read it on the web.
Today at Sebring the Aston Martin Racing team completed another test session as part of its preparations for Saturday’s 12 hour endurance race.
Building on the progress made during Monday’s four hours of track time, today the team concentrated on tuning the set up of the DBR9s and evaluating the new Pirelli tyres while the drivers became more familiar with the 3.7mile circuit.
As part of a busy programme at the Florida circuit, GT1 class cars were allocated 95 minutes of track time in the afternoon. The slot was later shortened by 20 minutes after an incident involving one of the other competitors. Like Monday, weather conditions were dry, sunny and hot. At the time of the GT1 test, the circuit temperature was 34°C.
In the limited time available, Nicolas Kiesa and Darren Turner completed 27 laps in DBR9 number 007, while Pedro Lamy and Stéphane Sarrazin finished 34 laps in car number 009. A lap time of 1min 57.221sec from Lamy/Sarrazin was the fastest in the GT1 category.
Team Principal George Howard-Chappell said: “The focus today was on driver experience, more set up and development work and trying a couple of new things to help tune the car to the circuit and tyres. In the event, we weren’t able to draw too many conclusions because of the reduced amount of time available and the variable circuit conditions. The weather and the amount of dirt from other cars on the alternate sessions meant the grip level was very inconsistent and that made it difficult make any real progress.”
Driver quotes:
Tomas Enge: “If everything had gone according to the schedule then I was going to drive at the end of the session but in fact, once the red flag came out, there was no time for me to test. It’s not a problem though, tomorrow is another day!”
Nicolas Kiesa: “Today went very well and I found more than half a second per lap, mainly thanks to a few tricks Darren and Pedro taught me. I’m still relatively new to this car and am learning more all the time. I think I made some good progress though and it was nice to be able to do eight or nine laps within three tenths of a second. It was very consistent and encouraging for the race.”
Pedro Lamy: “We were a bit faster than the opposition but it wasn’t a great day as the red flag prevented us from testing the things we really wanted to. We got some experience of driving in changeable conditions and the tyres felt pretty good but I would have like to have done more. I hope we can gather some more useful information tomorrow.”
Stéphane Sarrazin: “We continued to work on adapting the car to the tyres today. The track was very dirty in places and there was a lot of traffic which made it quite representative of the race. Overall it was very interesting and I think we’re not too far away from the right set-up. Tonight we’re going to analyse the data we’ve gathered to improve the car again tomorrow.”
Darren Turner: “A little bit frustrating. I did seven laps but the session was disrupted when another car went off and that limited what we are able to achieve. We basically need as much time on the circuit as we can get and I certainly found the day a little bit more difficult than yesterday.”
