29/11/2006
NEWS STORY
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Ferrari continues to set the pace at Barcelona. However, whereas on Tuesday it was McLaren's Pedro de la Rosa that spoiled the Maranello party, posting the second best time of the day and thereby splitting the scarlet duo, today it was Nick Heidfeld's turn.
It was another cold day with a dry start, but some rain at 10.00 meant about an hour of running was lost.
Luca Badoer and Felipe Massa continued with the programme begun yesterday consisting of long run tests, experimentation with new components and working on the set-up of the 248 F1. The Brazilian completed 84 laps, posting a best time of 1:16.403, while Badoer, who completed 71 laps, was 1.052s off the pace.
Nick Heidfeld continued testing the new transmission for BMW. He also did long and short runs on the new Bridgestone tyres, and the team appeared happy with his day's work.
Robert Kubica had the same goal as Nick, to work on the car's set up on the new tyres, and concentrated on this rather than testing new parts. Both drivers practiced starts in the morning.
This was Heidfeld's last day of testing this week, his place will be taken for the third and final day by Timo Glock, who is having his first test with the German team. Kubica will take over work on the new transmission while Glock will have what the team describe as a "normal first day of testing".
de la Rosa and Lewis Hamilton continued with the Bridgestone Potenza assessment work for McLaren, alongside ongoing evaluation of the brakes and the aerodynamic programme.
Hamilton suffered a mechanical failure on his right rear wheel assembly, which caused him to stop out on track. He then spent some time in the garage in the afternoon as the team changed set-ups as part of the scheduled evaluation process, before returning to the track to continue his programme.
Today was Toyota's first day of testing this week, and Olivier Panis was joined by Kamui Kobayashi, a member of the Toyota Young Drivers Program, and winner of the qualification race at Macau earlier this month.
Panis concentrated on the Bridgestone tyres that the team will use in 2007, while the Japanese youngster spent his day getting used to the car and putting in mileage on various systems. The Japanese team will continue its test tomorrow with race drivers Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli.
"Kamui did well today because he had to learn the circuit as well as the handling of the car," said test team manager, Gerd Pfeiffer. "He put in a lot of laps and he was very careful in the car and always aware of the other competitors on the track. Both he and Olivier put in mileage on the gearbox and engine and they looked at different weight distributions and software.
"Of course, the main focus of this week's test is to try out the new Bridgestone tyres which we will use in 2007 but it is still too early to judge how the rubber performs. We need consistent conditions to compare and contrast tyres and today the circuit was never really stable enough to draw any real conclusions. Tomorrow we will have the race drivers in the cockpit and we will use the track time to get a clearer picture about the new tyres and how we can get the package to work at its best."
Rubens Barrichello was joined by Christian Klien, who was making his Honda debut. The Austrian spent the day familiarising himself with the team and his early runs focused on acclimatising himself to the RA106 car and the new Bridgestone Potenza tyres, which he is also experiencing for the first time. He then worked through a tyre programme and chassis set-up work as the team continues its evaluation of the Bridgestone rubber.
Klien described his first day of testing with the Honda Racing F1 Team as follows: "It's been a great first day as a Honda driver. After some initial familiarisation with the car I basically got straight down to work helping the team to start developing our partnership with Bridgestone and looking at how we can get the best out of the new tyres. I did quite a lot of running for my first day – 79 laps – and I worked well immediately with the team and engineers. It's a very positive atmosphere and I think I have made a good contribution. I'm very happy and looking forward to more of the same tomorrow."
Rubens Barrichello was also on track, he continued his work from yesterday looking at the tyres and working on chassis set-up. The Brazilian completed the most laps today (96).
Mark Webber was eighth quickest, albeit 1.84s off the pace, in the Red Bull, while (2007) teammate was twelfth quickest.
For Renault, Heikki Kovalainen concentrated on tyre testing in order to continue the learning process with the Bridgestone tyres. The young Finn also conducted tests with different helmet types to evaluate their impact on air intake pressure.
His young team-mate Nelson Piquet continued to work on a programme designed to asses how set-up changes affected tyre performance. Once again, the aim was to collect as much information as possible with a view to the coming season. In parallel, Piquet's goal was to run as many laps as possible in order to continue with the reliability programme on 2007 components such as the new 2007 gearbox that has been running on the R26-05 'hybrid' chassis.
"We have a heavy workload at this session and a lot to learn," said the Finn, "firstly about the tyres of course but also about how they affect the handling of the car. We are making good progress and collecting important data, which is our main objective for the week."
"I had another good day, doing lots of laps without any problems," added Piquet, "which is very positive for me and is allowing me to continue learning with the team. I am trying to make the most of each session to get to know better the people I ma working with, and to get some reference points. We will continue our work tomorrow because there's still lots left to do!"
"This was a very positive day for our reliability testing," said Christian Silk. "We completed a substantial programme and collected a lot of data, particularly about the Bridgestone tyres. There is still a long way to go with our work, and we are aware of that, but that is the whole point of coming testing at this stage of the winter."
Anthony Davidson continued to make progress with Super Aguri's 2007 Bridgestone Potenza tyre evaluation programme and completed a total of 87 laps. The Englishman will conclude the Leafield-based outfit's running tomorrow.
Once again, Alexander Wurz was williamsF1's sole representative as he continued with work on front wing comparisons and new front suspension components.
"Behind the scenes, the telemetry systems continued to be tuned," revealed test team manager, Mike Condliffe.
Tomorrow, Narain Karthikeyan will take over the testing programme.
Scott Speed and Tonio Liuzzi were in action for Toro Rosso.