February 04, 2011
Published on tags: Superleague
Constant Racing had a mixed day in Jerez during the inaugural test of the 2011 season, with lead driver Mark Stanton forced to sit the day out while second driver William Ponissi and tester Robert Rose put the new contender to work on the Spanish circuit.

Talking to the media at a charity event in St.Helens, Stanton commented on the test day: "Leading up to the 1st pre season test at Jerez we knew we had what seemed to be the best engine, and wanted to get out on track to test the new car. Recently we recruited Robert Rose as our 1st test/reserve driver and checking his times from the session, although not the fastest overall, I believe he'll be a great asset for the team and hopefully very valuable in the test sessions."

Unfortunately, car problems meant the English driver, who brought Constant to the podium in both the 2009 and 2010 seasons, had to watch his teammates test: "As the session begun William's and Rob's cars started no problem and they proceeded to complete laps ona very crowded track. However, My car simply refused to start. We determined it to be a terminal fault in the car's electrical system, most likely from the ECU, which meant that depite all efforts the car would not start, and therefore I could not compete in the session. The team spent the first hour of the session tirelessly running diagnostics and working the laptops, but to no avail. Eventually I had to make the call to stop trying and right off the car for that session.Although I'm not a fan of theJerez circuit,missing this first session will have a big impact on R&D. Hopefully theseelectical issues willbe sorted before the next session in Germany and we can finally get the #7 car on track."

"From what I saw of the timing screensit seems Will and Rob got in some valuable laps which is great tosee and I'm sure the development will show that work later in the season."