DP01 testing heats up at Sebring.

The heat was turned up in more than one sense at Sebring on Wednesday as the first test of the new Panoz DP01 Champ Car continued at the Florida circuit.

The car ran more than 175 miles on a hot and muggy day, flawlessly completing a number of punishing 15-lap stints under the expert guidance of two-time Champ Car race-winner Roberto Moreno.

The test team worked late into the night to prepare the car for the third day of testing outing, which Moreno complete a number of stints longer than most Champ Car teams complete at Sebring under normal testing conditions. The 94-degree heat turned up the degree of difficulty in the test, but the DP01 answered the bell and ran all day without incident.

"The whole idea is to deliver a reliable product to the teams, and that is the purpose of these tests," Champ Car technical director Scot Elkins said. "We work on that by running longer stints here than the teams will normally when they get the car. From here on out, that is what we are going to continue doing."

Moreno, running his first serious stints in a Champ Car since 2003, agreed with Elkins' assessment and said he was happy with the way the test was continuing.

"It is hard here to complete 15-lap runs when you normally only do seven- or eight-lap runs when you are testing," he said. "But I'm really happy with the car and with the program. We got to the point today where we are starting to fine-tune it and it has been very reliable and responsive so far."

The extreme heat provided an additional test for the Elan Motorsports designers, as it gave them the perfect platform to check the cooling capacity of the aerodynamic designs, with improvements to the car set to increase passing opportunities and provide closer racing for the fans, while also prolonging the life of the car and its components by removing heat from the car.

"We're extremely happy at this time with how things are going," chief aerodynamicst Nick Alcock said. "We're running in some extreme temperatures and the cooling systems have performed very well. We are well within the limits and even have a cushion built in, which will allow teams more latitude with their aero setups. The engine and brake cooling systems are operating right where we need them to be."