08/04/2005
NEWS STORY
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Jarno, this was your first day back in the car after your two podiums in Malaysia and Bahrain. How did your test go here at Barcelona?
Jarno Trulli: We had a good day of running here, putting in over 100 laps of the track. I spent the morning working on set-up for this circuit as part of our preparations for the Spanish Grand Prix here next month. Then in the afternoon we moved onto tyre work. I stopped an hour early because I had a slightly stiff neck and Ricardo completed the final couple of runs of the programme.
The team had been scheduled to test here on Friday, too. Why has there been a change of plan?
JT: We had been hoping to do some more tyre work on Friday, but the weather forecast predicted rain. That would have made it impossible to complete the work we had planned. For that reason we decided not to waste one of the precious 30 test days that we are allowed under this year's testing agreement.
Ricardo, what were you working on here?
Ricardo Zonta: It was a good test for me. We put in over 200 laps over the two days and successfully completed everything we had planned, working on set-up, suspension and tyres. You need good downforce here but our car felt good on new tyres and it also stayed consistent on older tyres. At the end of the second day we had a problem with the clutch on my car so I switched to Jarno's car to finish off his programme.
You haven't done much testing in the new TF105 yet so how useful was that for you?
RZ: These two days gave me a good opportunity to get to grips with the new TF105. Most of my tests this year have been with last year's car so I have only really driven the new car on Fridays at races when I don't have much time to find my own set-up. But this test gave me a good chance to understand the car better and to find the right balance for myself.
Olivier, how did your day of running go?
Olivier Panis: We had a really good morning's work, doing some set-up work and some software tuning. We were due to do some long runs in the afternoon but a mixture of technical problems limited our running. Still, the car felt good and I'm very happy about how the season is progressing.
How has the car changed since the winter?
OP: The car looks like a big improvement compared to when I drove it at Valencia in January, both in terms of balance and the consistency of the rear tyres. So I think we're going the right way but we need to keep pushing and trying to improve still further.
Olivier Panis and Ricardo Zonta are scheduled to test for Toyota at Paul Ricard from April 13-15.
To check out our Barcelona test picture gallery, click here