23/01/2008
NEWS STORY
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On the second day of testing at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen topped the timesheets, posting a best time 0.6s quicker than his nearest rival, Ferrari's Felipe Massa.
With conditions staying clear for the second day of the test, McLaren, which had both Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton on duty, continued with its programme of accumulating miles on the MP4-23 and endurance testing components. This saw work focused on carrying out long runs throughout the day with both cars, the Woking duo completing 207 laps.
For Ferrari, Massa and Kimi Raikkonen continued with development of the F2008, concentrating chiefly on set-ups, reliability and starts. The Brazilian was the cause of a red flag early in the session, stopping out on track. However, it turned out to be a false alarm.
Williams continues to impress, with Kazuki Nakajima today out-pacing Nico Rosberg. However, the Japanese driver was in the FW29B, whilst the German continued with the new car unveiled on Monday.
Splitting the Williams was Fernando Alonso, once again cheered on by thousands of adoring fans. The Spaniard, at the wheel of the new R28, completed his third consecutive day of work with the team this week. Having completed a successful shakedown of the car earlier this week, the French team turned its attention to work on improving the balance of the car.
For the afternoon, the team made the most of ideal track conditions to validate set-up options and complete some long runs with the car. The team also did some practice starts and carried out some pit stop training as the day came to a close.
Alonso was pleased to have had a sustained period in the car, before Nelson Piquet Jr takes over tomorrow, the Brazilian getting his first taste of the R28.
"The purpose of this test was to start running the new car and to try to understand how it works," said the Spaniard. "My final day went well and again we ran without any problems and covered a lot of laps, but the time to improve the car will be during the next few test sessions. I feel very much at ease with the team and every day I feel more and more comfortable with the car. The next test cannot come soon enough. It was nice to see the support of the fans here today and that is always a big motivation."
"It was a more interesting day for the engineers," added Christian silk, "as we carried out a more set-up based programme to try and find a good balance with the car. It all went to plan with the car responding well to all the changes we made, so it's been a very encouraging day with good reliability. We also did some pit-stop practice towards the end of the day, which is normal procedure for a test."
With David Coulthard having had two days in the new car, one at Jerez last week and another yesterday here in Valencia, today it was Mark Webber's turn to try the Red Bull RB4 for the first time.
After making adjustments to his seat and driving position, Webber got down to business and the car ran almost faultlessly all day. The Australian got acclimatised to what will be his home for this year's eighteen races and, apart from the usual development work, he also did some aero testing with generally positive results.
"I'm happy with the new car," said the Australian, who continues here tomorrow. "Today has been encouraging and, so far, it seems to be a big step forward from last year in terms of reliability and speed, which is great. Now we need to work with what we've got and get it as fast as possible before Melbourne. We've got a big four weeks coming up."
Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica continued for BMW, as the German team continues to show a worrying lack of pace. According to the German, who completed only 51 laps today, the problem is the F1.08's balance.
As part of his limited programme, Heidfeld, who was in the F1.07, concentrated on systems settings. Meanwhile, Kubica, at the wheel of the F1.08, worked on the mechanical and aerodynamic set-up of the car. In addition, he did numerous systems checks and tested different suspension parts.
Reliability was the top item on Toro Rosso job sheet today, as both drivers were tasked with completing very long runs. Bourdais completed his programme but Vettel's came to a premature end because of a minor but, time consuming problem, which will hopefully be fixed in time for him to resume testing tomorrow. Also on today's agenda was set-up work and the evaluation of new aero parts.
Toyota had another positive day, with Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock both in action for the Japanese manufacturer. Both drivers focused on set-ups, with aerodynamic evaluations high on the priority list, along with suspension settings and other mechanical adjustments. The two TF108s ran trouble-free, and with few red flags to interrupt proceedings, both drivers, having completed more than a race distance, gathered useful set-up data.
"It was a difficult day for me," said Trulli, "because I did a lot of laps and I had to spend the whole day gathering some specific data to send to the factory in order to understand what we can improve on the car. The car was not particularly well balanced but this was the plan for today in order to study certain aspects of its behaviour. I am happy because I completed all the work I had planned. I wasn't looking at lap times at all today - the main thing was to get all the data we needed."
"It went pretty well," added Glock, "and again the car ran smoothly so we completed quite a few laps to make it a very productive day. We did a lot of work again on set-up and we tried many different settings to see what affect they had on performance. We are understanding more about the car every time we test and I am quite happy with how things are going. I think we are moving in the right direction and we know what we have to work on."
"Today went according to plan," said Dieter Gass, "and both Timo and Jarno completed their programmes without any problems. I have to say, so far the new car has shown very impressive reliability. Today we mainly concentrated on aerodynamic testing, trying various different configurations and comparing the results. I would say we are making good progress; we had another productive day and we have again improved our understanding of the new car. We expect to continue this tomorrow, when we will run a similar programme."
For Force India, Adrian Sutil was able to make up for yesterday's limited running, with the scheduled work on dampers and set up going ahead without any major mechanical problems. The German completed just under 400km of the Spanish track, with his best lap, a 1:13.409, closer to the pace than yesterday's time (Liuzzi). Giancarlo Fisichella will take over tomorrow.
"We had quite a good day today," said Sutil, "completing nearly 100 laps. We were able to do quite a few runs in the afternoon and the times were pretty OK and the balance, as usual, was good and getting better. I'm now back feeling much more comfortable after a long break over Christmas and I'm much more used to driving without traction control. We're tweaking the settings all the time and getting closer to the edge.'
"Today was a very productive day," added Mike Gascoyne, "completing almost 100 laps with a scheduled engine change at lunch. We completed our programme of damper and set-up work and further development of the ECU and had a useful day with no reliability issues."
Today marked the debut of Honda's much anticipated challenger, much anticipated in particular by the drivers because the 2007 car was so bad. Rubens Barrichello was entrusted with giving the RA108 its first run, and though this was little more than a shakedown there are sure to be a few people at Brackley worried by its initial lack of pace. The Brazilian completed 36 laps, posting a best time 3.58s off Kovalainen's pace, 2.5s off the pace of the 'big four'.
In the RA107 was Takashi Kogure, who got the drive as a reward as part of the Formula Dream Project through which Honda supports and develops promising young drivers.
Which beggars the question: If a drive in the RA107 is a reward, what does one get if one is being punished?
Answers on a postcard please.
To check out our Valencia Test gallery, containing over 110 pictures, click here