02/02/2006
NEWS STORY
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Just three-thousandths of a second separated the quickest two runners on the third day of testing at Jerez today.
Conditions were ideal throughout the session, with bright sunshine and temperatures reaching 20 degrees.
For Renault, the primary aim of today's running was to continue putting mileage on the new R26. That is the main objective of this winter's test programme: to work on reliability, push to the limit and identify potential problems in order to avoid them at the race weekend. The day's programme was completed in spite of numerous red flags caused by other cars.
Fernando Alonso completed a race in the morning, then concentrated on tyre testing during the afternoon, completing medium distance runs as he continued working with Michelin.
Meanwhile, Heikki Kovalainen continued his acclimatisation to the R26, while aiming to complete a race distance. Some small hydraulic problems delayed the programme, but the Finn was able to get back on track to conduct brake testing in the second half of the day.
"It was another busy day," said the Finn. "We wanted to do as many laps as possible today, and we did just that. I am pleased with my second day of running, because we only had small problems and that's normal when you are working with a new car. From a personal point of view, I feel comfortable in the car and I am pleased with performance today. I hope we can carry on in the same way tomorrow."
"We wanted to do a race distance with each car," said Christian Silk, "we got good results with both cars and didn't have any major problems, which is an encouraging sign ahead of the opening race. It was a productive day, even though the red flags made life difficult, but we are pretty pleased all in all. We hope to continue in the same manner tomorrow, working on race simulations during the morning before tyre testing in the second half of the day."
Second quickest was Jenson Button, who was joined by Anthony Davidson, who took over from Rubens Barrichello.
Both drivers began the test programme running through tyre evaluations followed by a race simulation with live pit stops in the afternoon session.
Button suffered an engine failure early in the afternoon session but was able to return to the track to complete his programme. Meanwhile, Davidson completed an impressive 128 laps in total.
"It has been another very good test for us this week," said Mark Ellis, Chief Engineer Vehicle Performance. "We have again had to contend with poor weather and track conditions however the cars have proven to be fast and consistent in all conditions. Despite a couple of small issues, we are happy with the reliability of the new car. We look forward to continuing our development programme in Jerez next week."
"We have gained a little more top power and an improved torque curve after this test," added Shuhei Nakamoto, Engineering Director, Honda Racing Development. "Our target is 100% reliability so we still have work to do in the coming weeks, but overall we have made good progress."
Ferrari had three drivers on duty, Michael Schumacher, Valentino Rossi and Felipe Massa was third quickest overall
Schumacher had the new 248 F1 at his disposal, while Massa had an F2004 fitted with the new V8 engine. Meanwhile, MotoGP star, Rossi continued with the V10 powered F2004.
The day's technical programme included tyre testing and car development for Schumacher, while Massa concentrated solely on tyre development. As for Rossi, he continued with acclimatising himself to the car, the Italian suffering a number of offs, one of which took out Jacques Villeneuve.
The Italian team resumes testing on Monday at Fiorano, with Felipe Massa on track.
Sixth quickest was Christian Klien, who, thanks to the weather, has had limited track-time thus far in 2006. Indeed, the ideal conditions today allowed the team to get through its entire programme.
"The car ran reliably with no major problems," said Chief Test Engineer, Ian Morgan. "As Christian had never driven the car in the dry, we started off by getting the set-up to his liking, before carrying out a programme centred on aero work, brake development and a Michelin tyre test."
Jacques Villeneuve was the quicker of the two BMW drivers on duty, the Canadian finishing eighth quickest, while Robert Kubica finished sixteenth, of sixteen, almost two-seconds off the pace.
The 1997 World Champion tested tyres for Michelin and worked on set-ups, while the Pole worked solely on a tyre test programme.
Tomorrow (Friday), when Nick Heidfeld and Villeneuve will be on duty, the team will continue the tyre programme and will also work on system analysis.
Toyota drivers Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli continued their individual tyre testing programmes, busy collecting important data for the further development and progress of the entire TF106 set-up.
Ralf will return to action tomorrow for the final day of the week's test alongside Toyota's third driver Ricardo Zonta. Each day Toyota is gaining confidence that the hard work put into its winter test programme will assist in the team being competitive in 2006.
"Today we have been able to carry out a lot of tyre testing," said the German. "We didn't have any technical problems and we put in some long runs so it was a successful day. Valencia has always been a difficult circuit to test on, and it is no different this time. It's also hard to make comparisons with the last time I tested here because we have a different engine and tyres. But we are keeping up our good work and in general we are happy with what we've seen today."
"This was another productive day with a lot of tyre testing for us," added Dieter Gass, the Japanese team's chief race and test engineer. "Yesterday we were able to collect some good data about the wet tyres, but today we concentrated mainly on construction development. We had quite a trouble-free day technically, and that allowed us to run through our entire programme. We tried putting in some long runs and again we saw quite a good improvement. Now we will look for further progress tomorrow to round off the week."
It was another difficult day for WilliamsF1, as both Wurz and Rosberg experienced gearbox problems.
"Today Nico and Alex continued our testing programme driving the FW28 and FW27C, respectively," said Sam Michael. "Both worked through some tyre tests for Bridgestone while we worked on improving reliability."
On Friday, Brazilian, Joćo Paulo de Oliveira, who has spent the past two seasons contesting the Japanese Formula 3 Championship, will test for the Grove team.
It was a hard day for too McLaren, which had Juan Pablo Montoya and Pedro de la Rosa on duty.
Juan Pablo continued to focus on car evaluation work and longer runs in the MP4-21, while Pedro returned to the Michelin development programme in the MP4-20 interim car.
The Colombian spent some time in the garage during the course of the afternoon, with a minor electrical issue, which was resolved by the test team and he eventually returned to the track.
Both drivers will be present tomorrow (Friday) for the final day of testing.
Weather
Air temperature: 11-21 C
Track temperature: 9-22 C.
Sunny
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