27/04/2006
NEWS STORY
Rain showers disrupted the second day of testing at Paul Ricard today, where Toyota and Ferrari continued to use the 3E-SC Short circuit.
Michael Schumacher who had the task of continuing with the Bridgestone tyre development programme that Luca Badoer had begun yesterday, completed 125 laps.
Ricardo Zonta hit the track late in the morning to work on set-ups and a tyre programme, while Jarno Trulli was able to continue working with Toyota's B-car package putting in over 130 laps.
"I feel we had a constructive test," said the Brazilian, "even though it rained in the afternoon and caused some challenging track conditions. Throughout most of the day, we worked on analyzing car behaviour based on issues and data that resulted at the Imola race. In the afternoon, we took advantage of the rain, and ran some wet tyre tests."
"We spent the day checking different set-ups and balance of the new car," revealed Trulli. "In addition to this, we worked on dry and wet tyres tests as well as preparations for the next race at Nürburgring. I feel the car shows promise, but like everything that is new, we still have work to do and we will see at the next test how the car evolves."
"Altogether we had a good test day," said Dieter Gass. "In the morning we spent some time with the old car analyzing and trying to understand some of the issues we had at the race last week. We found some positive results and this is a step forward for us. Both cars were performing tyre tests and we added a wet tyre test to the programme, due to the rainfall that we experienced. The new car was running well without any major issues, which is also very good. We will continue to work on this new car to maximize its potential, but we are happy with the results we gathered today."