- Barcelona Test - Day 1
Fastest lap bodes well for Monaco - Chilton
Max Chilton said his fastest time at Tuesday's Barcelona test day was not completely down to the super-soft tyres his Marussia was running and could be a good omen for Monaco in two weeks' time.
Chilton surprised the teams gathered at the Circuit de Catalunya for Tuesday's in-season test by setting the fastest time of the day in the final five minutes of the session. The time was set on super-soft tyres, but Chilton said Marussia made genuine progress over the day.
"That's what super-softs do, they just give you a car balance that is pretty nice," he said. "We'd worked on the balance all day and I was quite happy with it even going onto the softs at the end of the day. But it wasn't purely down to the super-soft, we did make a good step forward this morning.
"The fast laps are [driven in] the same [way] as any other lap, because at a test day it's important to be consistent as possible. Even the lap at the end, I was pushing, but I was trying to drive the lap that I had been all day. It was obviously down to tyres and set-up progression throughout the day."
With the unique challenges of Monaco just over a week away, where the super-soft tyres will be raced for the first time this year, Chilton said the set-up work had been focused on slow-speed corners.
"The set-up changes we've done were for slow-speed corners, so it works very well. We don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves because Monaco is a tricky circuit. We just hope we can carry a similar set-up through to Monaco in a couple of weeks and have a stronger race than usual."
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
