21/02/2007
NEWS STORY
As the majority of teams prepare for two major tests in Bahrain, Spyker and Williams concluded the first of two Spanish tests before heading off to Melbourne.
Following overnight rain and further showers throughout the morning, both teams were forced to change their planned programmes.
For Williams, Nico Rosberg was joined by Narain Karthikeyan, who now heads off to South Africa where he will represent his country in this weekend's A1 GP event in Durban. Spyker had its two 2007 race driver on duty.
"Due to the damp weather conditions, we were forced to amend our programme somewhat today," admitted Williams Test Team Manager, Dickie Stanford. "As such, we completed aero work with Nico and concentrated on set-ups with Narain.
"This week's test was productive and we're now going to move on to Barcelona for our last pre-season test prior to Melbourne."
Spyker concentrated on optimising balance, conducting race simulations and improving performance over one-lap runs. The Dutch team was also able to test the new Bridgestone Potenza wet weather tyres in the morning's session.
"Another productive day for us," said Technical Director, James Key. "Again, the reliability was very good. Both drivers drove well, we had a race simulation with Christijan this afternoon and although Adrian lost some time this morning with the damp track and later an engine change, he did put in some very positive work in the afternoon, particularly on new control systems. We worked hard on set-up options last night and today came back with some good solutions to get more out of the tyres. We've now got a much better handle on the performance over the first lap with new tyres.I think we can go to the next Barcelona test with a much better understanding of the car and tyres, and refine the improvements we've found this week."
"I think today went pretty well," said Albers. "I was able to complete a full race distance today with no real problems. We've done a lot of work on set-up and now the balance is better I can now push a bit more on the first lap with new tyres. Looking forward to Barcelona we've still got some work to do but we're going in the right direction, which is very encouraging."
We had some good runs in the last hour and tried out some different set-ups and control systems settings," added Sutil. "In the entry to the corner we have a lot more stability and mid-corner there's not so much understeer. In every area the car has more grip. Next time out we'll continue to work on set-up and different configurations and try to get more performance out of the tyres."
Both teams now head to Barcelona to begin their final pre-season test.
To check out our 2007 test centre, click here