Rossi on pace in Formula Renault debut

Alexander commenced two days of intensive testing with his 2011 World Series Renault team, Fortec Motorsport, at Motorland, Spain this week. Alexander had to get to grips with not only joining a new team, but working for the first time alongside his engineer in Formula Renault 3.5.

On a wet first morning’s running yesterday, there were a few teething problems to iron out, but Alexander was quick to become accustomed to the new Dallara chassis and was able to provide invaluable technical feedback to develop the car. Both the handling and performance improved dramatically towards the end of the day and it concluded with Alexander being much happier with the increased sustainable pace they had found. He finished the day in 5th position out of the 23-strong field, only 0.31 seconds off P1, providing the championship winning Fortec Motorsport team with a very respectable 1 minute 43.266 seconds lap time out of a 61-lap program ..Alexander took a change to today’s planned test program in his stride this morning and showed the Team why he is a title contender this year. A new tire run planned for the afternoon was brought forward to the morning and Alexander used this track time to full advantage, he set the 2nd fastest lap time for the combined 2-day test at 1 minute 42.401 seconds. The sunnier afternoon comprised race simulation, pit stop practice and heavy fuel load runs with Alexander finishing the day having completed 72 laps, and a total of 133 laps for the entire test, or 712 kilometers.

Jamie Dye, Team Manager, Fortec Motorsport: “This morning Alexander set a time that was 2nd quickest for both days on a new tire run, which is very respectable. Our original plan was to run one new tire set this morning and one this afternoon, but looking at the weather forecast it was going to be constant and cool, so we changed our program to include both sets this morning. This meant that we had time to run a race program in the afternoon.