F.Renault 3.5 – Pons Racing enjoys trouble-free day with Van Buuren and Dillmann

The second day of the Alcañiz collective test, the first official event of the 2014 F.Renault 3.5 season, was a very positive one for Pons Racing. The team’s cars clocked a total of 120 laps today, giving the team’s technical staff enough mileage to try many different solutions. The morning’s running was delayed due to the track being damp after an overnight rain shower, but that was just a slight hiccup in a smooth day that provided the team with a load of useful data. That was especially true for Meindert Van Buuren: being at his second day with the team, the Dutchman focused on setup changes aimed at tailoring the Zytek-powered Dallara to his driving style. On the sister car, Tom Dillmann enjoyed his first F.Renault 3.5 outing since one year ago. Coming from a full season in GP2, the French talent used both sessions to find the right feeling, but in the afternoon his pace on new rubber was 0.5″ off the top five. Tom Dillmann : “Today was my first time in the car since one year ago, so in the

morning I opted for a cautious approach, deciding not to use new tyres and taking my time to get acquainted with it once again. I have to say that I managed to find the pace quickly, so in the afternoon I pushed a bit more. Anyway I used just one set of fresh rubber and that wasn’t enough to understand the limit of the car especially, so there’s definitely room for improvement”.
Meindert Van Buuren: “We worked a lot today, trying to make changes to the

car’s setup to make it more suited to my driving style. Some changes proved to be right, other proved to be wrong, but all in all we made some steps in the right direction. Unluckily one of the ‘bad’ changes came just before fitting new tyres in the morning, but after that we quickly got back on the right path, and in the afternoon I really liked how car’s behaviour had changed. We didn’t test the latest setup on new rubber, but we’ll do it tomorrow morning and I’m sure that the outcome will be good”.