PacWest among Phoenix pacesetters

The Mercedes-powered duo recorded 270 miles during Tuesday's session, consistently lapping in the 19s range to record their best-ever times at the 1-mile Arizona oval.

Blundell said: "Everything went pretty well and we had a solid, very constructive test.

"We got in a long run and were able to share a lot of information between the two cars.

"We were faster than we were yesterday, and even in the heat of the day I still managed a 19.9s lap, which was pretty encouraging."

Team-mate Gugelmin was competing in his first test in the recently launched PacWest.

He said: "The car was good right out of the box.

"Everything is coming together very well and the combination of our new engineers, our new Mercedes-Benz IC108F, the Reynard 2KI, and our development programmes is producing some very exciting results.

"Overall, I think today was probably the best test we've had so far this season."

Gugelmin will conduct his final pre-season road course test at the Firebird East circuit on March 2 and 3.