19/04/2007
NEWS STORY
Although Bahrain showed a minor improvement, with Adrian Sutil posting a fastest race lap within 1s of Barrichello, Schumacher and Alexander Wurz, Spyker remains committed to introducing a 'B spec' car later this season.
However, Chief Technical Officer Mike Gascoyne has revealed that the car could appear as early as the European Grand Prix, following reports that it would make its debut in Turkey.
"We are bringing it forward to Germany," admits the Englishman. "It's less of an update because we're doing more updates earlier. The Malaysia package wasn't originally planned, and we're doing some parts for Barcelona, and hopefully there will be a package for Monaco. So we're doing more sooner, which is good."
Asked about the main changes that will feature on the 'B car', he revealed: "It's a new rear end, new gearbox, new radiator layout, new bodywork, and so on.
"Everyone's working hard," he continued. "We already know that aerodynamically it will be a fairly major step, and there will be a big improvement in the stability of the rear of the car. We're going from rotary to linear dampers; when I was at Toyota we found that change to be a big step forward in terms of controlling the rear of the car. So we're pretty confident that we'll make progress."
Gascoyne has previously admitted that his team made a mistake in not attending the tests in Malaysia or Bahrain, he remains convinced that this, plus the introduction of a new aero package for Sepang has added to the Dutch outfit's teething problems.
"We didn't do the Bahrain test, and we didn't do the Malaysia test. And with the update after the first race, it was always going to be a bit of a fight. Actually the boys have worked incredibly hard after the past two weeks, and they're very pleased to get a two-car finish. We'll only get better when we get back to Europe.'
Asked if Spyker will now carry out the same basic test schedule as its rivals, he replied: "'Yes, there's no real deficit for us in terms of testing. The wind tunnels are now producing bits, so it's starting to move forward.
"One of the good things about the last two races is we put the update on, and we got 100% correlation with the two wind tunnels and the track. I said to everyone, there's the blueprint on how we've got to make it better, we've just got to get on and do more of it. It'll take a year, but let's just got on with it.
"We're now running in Lola in the UK and Aerolab in Italy," he continued, "but within the next couple of weeks our new tunnel should switch on. It'll need a couple of weeks of commissioning, and then it will be running 24/7. So there are a lot of positive things for us."