It’s been a good start to 2012 so far for Romain Grosjean, who topped the times this morning in Jerez, setting an early benchmark of 1min 18.419secs using Pirelli’s medium compound 2012 specification tyre.

Romain ran through a programme of set-up evaluations as he put more kilometres on the E20. There were no reliability issues reported during the 53 laps completed by 13h00 local time.

“It’s the first time I’ve started the season as a Formula 1 race driver, so it was something special for me when I left the pitlane for the first time today” said the French driver.

“It was very slippery on track first thing this morning, but I’m enjoying being in the car. I’m comfortable and the E20 is nice to drive.”

Romain completed a number of runs as the team ran through its test programme.

“We’ve been looking at different set-ups as we need as much data as possible before the season gets underway. You need to know how the car reacts – say for example if you have understeer at a circuit, you need to know how to counter it. So we ran through a number of changes and logged everything to gain a better understanding of the car.”

Setting the fastest time of the morning was not a target for the team, but it nevertheless gave Romain a warm feeling.

“It was very good to be at the top of the times – hopefully we will stay there for the rest of the season!”

Full report on day 3 at Jerez to follow later this afternoon.