One of the most interesting additions to the Paul Ricard ELMS test was the appearance of a Villorba Corse run Ferrari 458 Italia.
Driven by Olivier Beretta and Daniel Serra, the car was a development tool for Dunlop Motorsport to evaluate several future developments, which this week were mainly centred on the Le Mans 24 Hours.
“Villorba Corse made their car available to us this week and we made some good steps in many key areas including some new mould profiles and concepts in compounds,” said Dunlop’s chief engineer Michael McGregor.
Beretta, a Ferrari factory driver who was not at Sebring last weekend and relatively local to Ricard was called upon to kick-start the development test on Monday. By the end of Tuesday the 458 Italia had clocked up 1450kms.
“With the announcement in ELMS that we are now the only supplier we have to keep on top of new developments and this is something that we will continue, especially after Le Mans when the intensity of the development testing will crank up in readiness for 2016,” continued McGregor.
Daniel Serra has regularly been part of Dunlop’s development testing since 2013 and has conducted previous tests at Monza, Sebring and Atlanta. The Brazilian, who celebrated his 31st birthday today is highly rated by McGregor and his colleagues for ‘very impressive precise and accurate feedback.
The wet weather this afternoon at Paul Ricard also gave the Dunlop technicians a chance to evaluate the new pattern and profile wet tyres for 2015.
