Reports

Successful second test day for VM Motorsport

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© Frits van Eldik // Verstappen in the Porsche at Guadix

On the second day of testing at Guadix the Van Merksteijn Motorsport team drivers Jos Verstappen and Peter van Merksteijn completed their stints without any serious problems. The team ended the test session with a new lap record and are very positive for the next test session at Paul Ricard and the first race at Barcelona.

The morning session started in the fog, which caused the team to lose half an hour of track time. When the fog had cleared Verstappen went out on the track. As Verstappen got more and more familiar with the Porsche the lap times started to drop and before the lunchbreak he had already improved the lap record to a 1:03.2. The only problem Verstappen encountered was a brake problem, a rare problem according to the engineers from Weissach.

As Verstappen felt he had done enough laps to get to grip with the Porsche RS Spyder he took the car back into the pitlane and handed it over to Peter van Merksteijn. The rest of the day Verstappen fully focussed on helping Van Merksteijn and the team to improve the lap times and the car. Verstappen helped Van Merksteijn to use the collected data to alter the car’s setup and gave him usefull feedback on what to do in what situation. By the end of the day Van Merksteijn was only two seconds slower than Verstappen.

“Jos was a real team player today. He knew Peter would need some extra laps to get used to these kind of cars and the moment Jos had enough confidence in the car (and himself) he handed over the car to Peter. From that moment on Jos was one of the first guys near the car when it came into the pit lane, providing Peter with feedback to improve his driving,” according to VM’s Robert van Barneveld.

After two days of testing the targets set by the team for the Guadix test were easily reached. The cooperation between the team members was going well and the atmosphere is perfect. With the drivers working together the team is confident they will be able to improve even more at Paul Ricard so that they are really able to go for it at the first race in Barcelona.

The team will now work on the car for two days at Guadix before heading for France where the Paul Ricard HTTT Le Mans Series Test Days will take place on March 2-3. At the French circuit the teams three drivers will be in action again. Van Merksteijn will be testing until midnight at Paul Ricard to give Verstappen some experience of driving in the dark.