06/12/2007
NEWS STORY
On a day when a couple of teams, including McLaren and Renault, brought their 2007 testing programme to an end, BMW's Robert Kubica gave the German team another major confidence boost by topping the timesheets.
Along with Kubica, the German outfit had Nick Heidfeld on duty, who completed his third and final day of testing, Both drivers continued the team's development work on the electronics and car set-up for 2008. Also, the Pole had his first taste of the 2009 Bridgestone slick tyres. While there were a few small issues that caused minor interruptions to the planned test, all in all it was a positive day the team claims.
Tomorrow's work will focus on 2008 developments, while the team is hoping to finish its mileage and tyre allocation for the year. For Kubica it will be his third day of testing, while Marko Asmer will have a full day, after the Estonian spent a half day in the car on Tuesday.
McLaren concluded its 2007 programme, as the test team continued to focus on the programme of aerodynamic and suspension work. Both Lewis Hamilton and Pedro de la Rosa completed the planned programme in another constructive session. The Spaniard also spent time on slick. In order to simulate the 2009 conditions as much as possible, the car was also set-up to the corresponding aerodynamic regulations. This sees the cars run with less downforce.
Felipe Massa and Michael Schumacher took to the track for Ferrari as they mainly worked on the development of new components and electronics in preparation for next year. In addition, in the afternoon, Schumacher ran with slicks.
At Red Bull, David Coulthard and Mark Webber swapped cockpits, so that the Scotsman was in the car with the 2008 specification ECU, while his Australian teammate drove the 2007 car with traction control and engine braking disabled.
Webber had a profitable morning, working through an aero programme as well as trying out the 2009 slick tyres. However, an unscheduled engine change cut short his afternoon programme.
Coulthard concentrated on evaluating the 2008 electronics and had a good day: "We made a lot of progress and it was very encouraging," said Chief Test Engineer, Ian Morgan. As planned, Coulthard is the only Red Bull driver running tomorrow.
Toyota welcomed Jarno Trulli back into action at today, where he joined Timo Glock. The Italian resumed the programme Kobayashi started, focusing on developing the new rear end and working with the 2008 standard ECU for the first time. The team's strong reliability record in testing means it is approaching the final day with the 30,000km annual limit getting close so Glock's programme was always scheduled to be shorter than his teammate's.
A hydraulic problem in the morning gave Glock an unscheduled break but he had the chance to test slicks in the afternoon, as well as continuing his set-up work. A string of red flags late in the afternoon disrupted proceedings but both drivers will return tomorrow to bring the curtain down on 2007.
"It was a positive day," said Trulli, "and it was good to be back in the car. We ran through all our planned programme running with the 2008 ECU and rear end of the car. This was the first time I have driven with the 2008 standard ECU but of course I have a lot of experience of driving without traction control. The main task was to put in a lot of mileage which have successfully done today. We concentrated on finding new things with the set-up and improving the general ECU settings. All in all it was quite a good day."
"Again we completed a lot of work today," added Pascal Vasselon, "although Timo did suffer a delay in the morning while a hydraulic issue was repaired. It was really interesting to run the slick tyres on Timo's car and we got a lot of information which will help us to adjust to the change in 2009. The difference between slicks and the current grooved tyres is quite big and the car behaves differently. Obviously there is more grip without the grooves and lap times are faster, which we expected, but it was interesting to note that the car balance and handling stays good with the slick tyres when we thought there could be difficulties. Jarno put in a hard day's work and we have made more progress with the 2008 ECU so now we look forward to concluding the year's testing tomorrow."
For Renault, Nelson Piquet spent the morning tyre testing, comparing the 2007-spec tyres with prototype 2009 tyres. The team also worked on start procedures without traction control, and continue to optimise chassis set-ups without electronic driver aids. On the engine side, the Viry engineers pursued their programme of fine-tuning the mapping of the RS27 to run harmoniously with the standard ECU, looking at parameters such as idle speed and the operation of the rev limiter.
There were no major problems throughout the day, and Piquet completed a full programme. He covered a total of 90 laps, equating to nearly 400 km, and set the seventh-fastest time.
"We had a good day," said Piquet, "we made progress with the car and I did a lot of laps, which is always very positive. I think this was an encouraging session for us, and the team collected some interesting data, which was the main objective."
"We worked well today," added Christian Silk. "The team skipped its lunch break to get the most out of our final day of testing, so thank you to everybody! The team never lets its head go down this year, in spite of all the difficulties we faced, and once again today they gave the absolute maximum. We collected a lot of interesting data today, and our focus is already firmly on 2008."
The French outfit will head home to base this evening to analyse the data collected. They will next be in action for the first test of the R28 in January 2008.
Rubens Barrichello spent the morning working on further tuning of the 2008 electronics control systems alongside brake development work. In the afternoon, he had the opportunity to try out the slick tyres, the Brazilian running a programme aimed at helping the team to investigate the performance and characteristics of the tyres.
On the final day for the Honda Young Driver Programme this week, 22-year-old Italian Luca Filippi had his opportunity in the car. The youngster followed a similar programme to Mike Conway and Andi Zuber over the previous two days and spent the morning acclimatising to the car and the set-up. In the afternoon session he completed a series of long runs, followed by a lower fuel performance evaluation. Unfortunately a series of circuit red flags in the last hour of running hindered the running and prevented the Italian from completing a final new tyre run.
Nico Rosberg was joined by Kazuki Nakajima as the duo worked on set-up developments in the interim FW29Bs. Although hindered by several red flags, it was another "helpful" day for the British team. Both drivers are back on duty tomorrow.
For Toro Rosso, Sebastian Vettel, running the car with 2008 electronics, evaluated some rear suspension components, while Sebastien Bourdais worked on the mechanical set-up of his car, as well as looking at damper performance. Both drivers also tried new brake material and looked at improving driveability without the use of traction control.
At Super Aguri, the planned programme for the morning was for Takuma Sato to gain his first experience of the 2008 MES control system, evaluating each control function and tuning them towards his preferences for the coming season. In the afternoon the Japanese driver ran the 2009 slicks with simulated 2009 down force levels for the first time.
Force India, which had Tonio Liuzzi and Ralf Schumacher on duty, was rooted firmly at the bottom of the timesheets, with both drivers over 2s off the pace.
Both drivers worked on gathering more information on the 2008 control systems, general set-up work and tyre evaluation, however, they did not complete their respective programmes due to the interspersed runs.
On his first run in the car, Schumacher experienced hydraulic problems in the morning, and had to abort his shorter runs due to the stoppages, however his pace, consistency and speed over longer stints was particularly impressive.
Liuzzi, on his second full day with the team, similarly had a frustrating day with the stops, but his feedback and speed over shorter runs will help the team with its programme going forward into the final day tomorrow.
"Overall it was a difficult day with several stoppages," admitted James Key, "however this morning was quite productive. Tonio got a fair few laps in and gave some good feedback, which seemed to take the car in the right direction and his shorter runs were consistent. For Ralf it was more difficult as we had some issues with the car initially, which unfortunately slowed things down, especially as it was his first time with the team and his first without control systems. Over the longer runs it came together pretty well for him though and he was very consistent. Once again though it has been a very useful day of feedback for the team from experienced drivers."
"It was a difficult day today as it was my first time with the team and I had to learn about how to work with the 2008 electronics," said Schumacher. "Unfortunately we had some problems with the car in the morning and then lots of red flags in the afternoon, but when we went for the long runs it was quite promising. When we had some new tyres on, unfortunately in the morning we didn't get it right, and the second was interrupted by a red flag. Although it was a difficult day, it was still good and I think we did get some good information."
"It was positive and I am happy with the work we did," added Liuzzi. "Unfortunately there were a lot of red flags so we couldn't run our second set of tyres to the full extent, but I am happy with the car balance and the way we worked together. We did some long runs and didn't find a perfect set up, but now for sure we have a lot of work to do on the car. I felt I did the maximum though."