Pirelli has completed its third test ahead of its return to Formula One, with a successful two-day outing at Jerez.
Nick Heidfeld was once more behind the wheel, in his final test for the Italian manufacturer before his own return to the sport with Sauber in Singapore.
The German completed near 200 laps over the two days, as Pirelli’s engineers attempted to move closer to deciding which four compounds would be offered as slicks in 2011.
“We’d like to thank Nick for his very valuable contribution to our tyre development programme and we wish him all the best for the future,” Pirelli’s Motorsport Director Paul Hembery is quoted as saying by Autosport.
Subsequently, Hembery revealed that the vacant test seat would be filled by former Renault driver Romain Grosjean.
“In order to avoid favouring any individual team, we have jointly decided to release Nick from his contract and now we have chosen Romain to test for us in Monza.
“He’s packed a lot of experience into a short space of time, including all our GP3 tyre development, so I’m sure he’ll be able to give us some very useful feedback. The tests here at Jerez have gone extremely well and we completed all the work that we planned over the two days.
“Now we move onto Monza, where our task will be to finalise the construction before we focus further on compounds.”
