TESTING NOTES/QUOTES—- Sebring, Florida, March 9, 2012
Things to Note:
- The two day test marked Servia’s second test with Lotus DRR at Sebring International Raceway (completed engine testing with Team Lotus, making this his third test in the DW12).
- Servia was 12th (P22 combined) fastest on day one with a time of 53.3479 seconds and 11th (P19 combined) fastest on day two with a time of 52.9178 seconds, making him the quickest of the Lotus drivers.
- Oriol completed a total of 212 laps and logged a total of 354 miles over the two day test.
- This will be the first time that Servia has competed for Lotus DRR, he signed with the team in January.
- Servia has been reunited with his engineer, Yves Touron, who he has worked with in the past and has a solid relationship with.
- Last year Oriol finished fourth in IZOD IndyCar Series standings….Recorded 11 top-10 finishes, with a best of second at New Hampshire and Baltimore….Among three drivers to be running at the finish in all 17 races….. Led all drivers in laps completed (2,103 of 2,011)….Oriol was the only driver to finish in the top 10 in first five races of the season.
- During the off-season Lotus DRR (formerly known as Dreyer & Reinbold Racing) underwent a huge rebranding effort and was able to display their new logo and livery at the test.
Oriol Servia, No. 22 Lotus DRR: “Yesterday, I wasn’t too happy. We didn’t make the progress that we had wanted to. The truth is, when you are trying new things that you haven’t tried before you cannot always hope that they will be better. Today on the other hand, we did make some progress on both the car and engine. We will see, there is still quite a bit of improvement left to be made by St. Pete, but all we can do is just keep trying.”
Dennis Reinbold, Lotus DRR Co-Owner: “We knew coming into this test that we had a lot of work to do. We got through a lot of our list of things to try out. We’ve been working on trying to make the balance of the car better. Prior to this test, we’ve really been doing engine development work. Even though, we are still worked on that a little bit and the Lotus guys really made some good strides, we were able to do some chassis tuning as well, which is what we needed to focus on.”
Next on the schedule:Lotus DRR will head home to Indianapolis to prepare the car before heading to St. Petersburg, Florida for the season opener on March 25th. The race will be telecast live on ABC. Please visit www.dreyerreinboldracing.com for more updates.
http://oriolservia.homestead.com/