Russian Formula One driver Vitaly Petrov struggled with understeer and oversteer in an “odd” pair of practice sessions for the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya, he said Friday.
Petrov’s Caterham team is seeking to increase their car’s pace and take the fight to midfield runners such as Force India and Toro Rosso after pulling away from backmarkers Marussia and HRT in the first four races of 2012.
“It was a bit of an odd couple of sessions for us,” Petrov said on the team’s website.
“This morning we did all the runs on the hard tires and couldn't really find a balance I could push with, and then this afternoon we managed to dial out the understeer we had on both the hard and soft tires, but suddenly found we had oversteer that hadn't been there before.”
The team did not expect the handling problem but is hurrying to correct it ahead of Saturday’s third practice session and qualifying, he said.
“It's not what we were expecting after the Bahrain race and the Mugello test, but we'll work on it tonight and I'm sure we'll find a solution for FP3 and qualifying.”
Petrov posted a time of 1 minute 26.740 seconds to lie 20th-fastest in Friday’s second practice session, 0.444 seconds behind his Finnish teammate Heikki Kovalainen and 3.441 seconds off the pace of fastest runner Jenson Button of McLaren.
Earlier Friday, Petrov was 19th-fastest in the first session with a lap of 1 minute 27.475 seconds, compared to 1 minute 24.430 seconds for the leader, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
Petrov has never finished in the points at Catalunya in F1, recording 11th-place finishes in 2010 and 2011, although he came second there in the GP2 feeder series in 2009.
