Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsLotus F1

Fastest time ‘not enough’ for Maldonado

Pastor Maldonado says setting the fastest time in testing is “not enough” to satisfy him with the new Lotus.

Two red flags in the morning session limited Maldonado’s running, but in the afternoon he went fastest on the soft compound tyres. In playing down the headline time, Maldonado says he doesn’t want Lotus to get carried away by the fact that it was fastest and highlights the car’s improved reliability compared to 12 months ago as the more encouraging factor of the day.

Asked for the cause of the stoppages in the morning, Maldonado replied: “Some sensor failures, but very easy to avoid the problems.

“I think from my point of view, in terms of reliability it’s a huge step forward from last year. We saw that even at the last test at Jerez, with a new car we were running immediately, it’s positive. The day was good, I’m a bit happy but it’s not enough so we need to try to improve some particulars in the car.

“I know it’s still early but we don’t have a lot of time to think about it, we have to react soon and be fully ready for the first race.”

And Maldonado says Lotus has yet to run the Mercedes engine at 100% due to the amount of work it has to do with a new power unit.

“It’s a new engine for us, we are just trying different things with the engine. It’s not just about the power, it’s about the whole package which is coming together at the moment in terms of mappings. Even with the gearbox we are getting to a good point now. We started the day with a few problems, but we’ve been solving the problems through the day and in the afternoon it was a much better car.”

Full times and day one of the second test as it happened

Click here for the gallery from day one of the second test

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.