Davide Valsecchi might have pulled off a whitewash of the top of the daily testing timesheets at
Jerez this week, but he was careful not to let it go to his head as the team packed up and moved on to next week's test session at Barcelona.
"It's nice to see I set the quickest time, but it's not the most important thing," said the 25-year-old from Italy. "What'll count is our position in the race and we'll do everything possible to be in front."
"The prime objective was not to chase the stopwatch," the DAMS team insisted in its post-Jerez press release. "Rather it was to allow drivers and engineers to get to know one another and to get used to the team's working methods."
If that's true and the DAMS squad really weren't chasing the times, it makes their achievement at
Jerez all the more impressive.
"We used the three days' test at
Jerez to put in place the right links between the engineers, drivers and the new DAMS general manager, François Sicard," said the president of DAMS, Jean-Paul Driot. "The result? The fastest time by Davide Valsecchi every day, which is exceptional!"
"The whole team's very happy with the three days and we're delighted with the fastest time, which goes to prove the quality of the effort we've made," agreed Sicard, before he too struck a cautionary note. "We mustn't get carried away as we're only just beginning and far from running in race conditions."
Slightly eclipsed by Valsecchi's time-topping performance was Felipe Nasr's début in a
GP2 car. His first day on Tuesday was spent acclimatising to the new hardware and he finished down in 22nd place in both the morning and afternoon sessions, but he improved with every session after than and concluded on a high on Thursday in 11th place with a lap of 1:26.127s.
"I'd like to single out Felipe for his incredibly quick learning curve even though it was a whole new world for him," said Sicard of the 19-year-old Brazilian's improvement through the week.
Driot praised "Felipe Nasr's stunning progress," adding: "I'm sure he doesn't miss the Buzios beach after discovering Andalusia!"