While stressing that the time is not important, India's Narain Karthikeyan, wearing a brand new Hispania Racing suit, upped his pace to clock a best of one minute, 17.769 seconds on the second day of the pre-season Formula One testing here Wednesday.
The 34-year old Karthikeyan covered 80 laps (320.4 km) and expressed satisfaction on the progress being made at the Ricardo Tomo circuit.
"We have been working through the programme. We did 80 laps, which is good. Obviously the times are not so important. We were not going for times today, just building up to it nicely.
Karthikeyan's time on the second day, that was sixth quickest among the 15 ran timed laps, was a definite improvement as compared to his best of 1:18.0029 (45 laps) that he did Tuesday.
Force India’s Di Resta impresses
Force India's new signing Paul di Resta excelled on day two of the winter testing programme at the Valencia permanent circuit, competing more than 100 laps and posting the third best time of the day at the 3.92km Spanish track here.
His fastest lap of 1:13.844 was behind Ferrari's Fernando Alonso (1:13.307) and current world champion Sebastian Vettel (1:13.614) of Red Bull.
Di Resta contributed to a productive day as he gathered more information on the performance of the three Pirelli tyre compounds available this week.
{{/usCountry}}Di Resta contributed to a productive day as he gathered more information on the performance of the three Pirelli tyre compounds available this week.
{{/usCountry}}"We’re gathering information to work on as we prepare for the debut of the VJM04 next week. We're now understanding more about the performance of Pirellis and differences between the compounds, particularly with regards to long and shorter runs and different fuel loads,” he said.