[Felipe Bomeny]

Here’s the list of names of who’s testing for which team and on which day, courtesy of italiaracing.net. The big names here are Marcus Ericsson, Conor Daly, and Mathéo Tuscher. Albert Costa returns after winning the Mégane trophy. He’ll try to win the 3.5 litres and make it three for three in the WSR.

Day 1

Carlos Sainz – Carlin
Jazeman Jaafar – Carlin
Nikolay Martsenko – Fortec
Will Stevens – Fortec
Filip Salaquadrda – ISR
Yann Cunha – ISR
Conor Daly – Tech 1
Marcus Ericsson – P1
Pietro Fantin – Lotus
Marco Sorensen – Lotus
Tamas Pal Kiss – BVM Target
Niccolò Schirò – BVM Target
Arthur Pic – AV Formula
Marlon Stockinger – AV Formula
Nico Muller – Pons
Zoel Amberg – Pons
Vittorio Ghirelli – Draco
Albert Costa – Draco
Christopher Zanella – Comtec
William Buller – Comtec
Norman Nato – Arden
Lucas Foresti – Arden
Sergey Sirotkin – Dams
Kevin Magnussen – Dams

Day 2

Carlos Sainz – Carlin
Jazeman Jaafar – Carlin
Kevin Magnuessn – Fortec
Lucas Foresti – Fortec
Filip Salaquadrda – ISR
Sergey Sirotkin – ISR
Nicolay Martsenko – Tech 1
Conor Daly – Tech 1
Marcus Ericsson – P1
Pietro Fantin – Lotus
Marco Sorensen – Lotus
Tamas Pal Kiss – BVM Target
Arthur Pic – AV Formula
Yann Cunha – AV Formula
Matheo Tuscher – Pons
Zoel Amberg – Pons
Vittorio Ghirelli – Draco
Andrè Negrao – Draco
Christopher Zanella – Comtec
William Buller – Comtec
Norman Nato – Arden
Stoffel Vandoorne – Arden
Matias Laine – Dams
Will Stevens – Dams

[Keith Collantine]

No Daniil Kvyat? Interesting. Keen to see how Vandoorne fares after his 2.0 win. Sorensen doing two days suggests he might be around for another season, hopefully without the miserable luck he endured this year.

I saw Schiro racing in F3 Open, he’s really come on strong lately with four wins in the last six races putting him in title contention.

Ericsson looking to be the Bianchi/Bird of 2013? After three years in GP2 he’ll have to claim the title to get noticed.

[Prisoner Monkeys]

No Korjus?

I’m disappointed. Like Sorenson, he had rotten luck in 2012 – especially after a stellar debut season – but once he moved to Lotus, he came good. One suspects Ferrari arranged for Tech 1 to back Jules Bianchi from the start of the season, hence Korjus’ endless mechanical woes.

[Felipe Bomeny]

It’s definitely a shame but it’s possible that Korjus will test the E20 at Abu Dhabi alongside Prost Jr.

[Prisoner Monkeys]

True. And testing line-ups are by no mean representative of what the grid will look like next season.

I believe Korjus is a member of Lotus’ driver development programme – which is how he wound up in the Gravity-Lotus when he left Tech 1 – and while he probably isn’t going to step up to Formula 1 next season, Lotus could easily place him in the Lotus GP team in GP2 next year, or keep him in the Gravity-Lotus squad.

[Felipe Bomeny]

@prisoner-monkeys It’s worth noting that the other three drivers in the Gravity scheme are Richie Stanway, Oscar Tunjo, and Esteban Ocon- Stanaway is probably the quickest of the quartet but there’s a huge question mark looming over him due to his injury. Ocon is still very young and in my opinion needs another year in FR2.0. Tunjo could do a season in GP3 with a top team such as ART or win the 2.0 and do “the jump” like Frijns and Korjus did. In this respect, Korjus is a valuable member to Gravity-Enstone as he’s quick and despite a woeful year, has the experience the development program needs.

[Felipe Bomeny]

@prisoner-monkeys

Actually, Korjus will NOT test the E20. Nicolas Prost will be joined Davide Valsecchi and Edoardo Mortara. Good news for Mortara, bad for Korjus.

[Enigma]

Korjus did test for Lotus (then Renault) last year, didn’t he?
Anyway, hope to see him in 3.5 or GP2 next year with a fast car, he deserves better than this year.

[AdrianMorse]

I find it interesting to compare the speed of the 3.5 Renaults to other series like GP2 and F1. Magnussen declared that the conditions were perfect when he set his times, but even so his 1m28.721 is pretty quick. Calado’s pole time in GP2 this season was a 1m30.655, and De La Rosa’s Q1 time was 1m27.555.

Also, I kept an eye on the live timing during last weekend’s races (I had no images), and the fastest runners were able to lap in the 1m33s and 1m34s consistently, in a 45-minute race. If you compare that to the lap times of the HRTs during this year’s Spanish Grand Prix (https://www.racefans.net/2012/05/13/2012-spanish-grand-prix-fastest-laps/), the 3.5 Renaults are not that far off.

In his final stint, De La Rosa is able to lap quicker (in the low 1m32s), but then he also had newer tyres. It does make me wonder whether Formula 1 ought to be a little bit careful when going for slower and slower regulations; I don’t know the details of the 2014 regulations, but if F1 cars lose both power and downforce, then certainly the slower F1 cars will no longer be faster than cars from the junior categories.

[Force Maikel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ_dmA9u1m8

Apparently one of the test was canceled because of snow and Fortec found a way to amuse themselves. Look at Vandoorne on the right, you’ve got to be Belgian to come up with something like that.

[Author]

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