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Formula E Donington August test

Duval: No point sandbagging in testing

Dragon Racing driver Loic Duval has dismissed notions of teams sandbagging during the official pre-season Formula E tests at Donington Park.

Sam Smith

Edited: Aug 17, 2015, 1:02 PM

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Loic Duval, Dragon Racing

Nicolas Prost, Renault e.Dams

Audi Sport Team Joest: Loic Duval

Sam Bird, DS Virgin Racing Formula E Team

Bruno Senna, Mahindra Racing

Sam Bird, DS Virgin Racing Formula E Team

The French racer, who finished ninth in the inaugural season with two podium finishes, believes that teams have to validate their private testing against other teams at the six combined test days.

“I’m not sure on sandbagging actually; I am not a big believer in doing that because as a team, you need to know what you have got with a new package,” Duval told Motorsport.com.

“This is especially true here because you only have so much energy to play with. Maybe some are keeping something in their pockets but for sure we are not as it would not make sense to do that. On the whole I think we will see true pace here and no games being played.”

Duval thinks that the racing will be just as close as in season one and that the final four test days will see some key understanding on how improvements in the manufacturers efficiency can be improved and managed.

“It is very similar because at the end you are limited by the battery,” he said. “We are still in the learning process of course but the gains are quite small, which actually for the championship I think is very good because it will still be close at the races.

"I think you are going to see acceleration in the development in the final two tests here as there will be specific information that will be more in common with a street track to here at Donington”

Drivers are in the process of adapting to a slightly modified braking system introduced for season two by Spark Technology, but Duval believes that it has so far not made a drastic difference to overall performance.

“The brakes are better in terms of getting them up to temperature but we still have this issue of locking quite easily. On the whole it has been positive for the brakes though,” said Duval.

Overall, Duval believes that a general picture of pace will emerge after the Donington tests but that the racing will be as close as it was in season one.

“We saw some teams having more problems than others but there are still a few days and also a lot can be done away from the test track as well.

"Some of the new technology is very interesting but then you have to think about the reliability, especially when we go to what are hot and bumpy places like Beijing and Malaysia I guess. I think there will be some surprises when we get to China.”

Second pre-season test entry list:

Team Drivers NEXTEV TCR

Nelson Piquet

Oliver Turvey

DS Virgin

Sam Bird (Monday)

Jean-Eric Vergne (Tuesday)

Dragon

Loic Duval

Jerome D'Ambrosio

Renault edams

Sebastien Buemi

Nicolas Prost

ABT Schaeffler AS

Daniel Abt (Monday)

Lucas di Grassi (Tuesday)

Trulli

Jarno Trulli

Venturi

Jacques Villeneuve

Stephane Sarrazin

Mahindra

Bruno Senna

Nick Heidfeld

Andretti

Simona De Silvestro

Team Aguri

Nicolas Lapierre (Monday)

Nathanael Berthon (Tuesday)

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