13/02/2008
NEWS STORY
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Mark Webber topped the timesheets on the third day of testing at Jerez, as strong winds played havoc with teams' test programmes.
Despite topping the timesheets, Red Bull were first to admit that, given the circumstances, it was difficult to draw any meaningful results on the aerodynamic and balance front.
That said, Webber had a good day exploring the performance potential of the new car, and, along with David Coulthard, put another 169 laps on the clock. However, while the Scotsman had a trouble-free day, his Australian teammate suffered a number of problems which led to several unscheduled stops.
Having clearly sorted out its front wing problem, Williams continues to impress, with Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima finishing second and third quickest. The Grove drivers, who completed 189 laps in total, both finished within 0.5s of Webber and over 0.5s ahead of fourth-placed Fernando Alonso.
Due to the gusty conditions, which continued throughout the day, Renault was one of several teams forced to adapt its programme accordingly, though the team continued to operate a two-car programme, with Alonso and Nelson Piquet.
The Spaniard experienced some minor problems in the morning, but had a trouble-free afternoon and was able to test parts that were not affected by the conditions. His Brazilian teammate operated a similar programme, with set-up work in the morning, and some longer runs in the afternoon. At the same time he was able to conduct the usual test procedures, including installation laps, starts, and pit-stop practice.
For the final day of running tomorrow, Piquet will be joined by fellow Brazilian Lucas Di Grassi, who will build on the work he completed with the team yesterday.
"Like all teams here we struggled with the very windy conditions," admitted Alonso. "But we tried to make the most of the day and tested some important parts of the car that were not affected by the wind. So we did some useful work, but we will have to concentrate on the performance of the car later on in February."
"We carried out the same programme as yesterday," added Piquet, "which went well, although we had to cope with the wind, which was not ideal. Still, we covered lots of laps and I completed a race distance in the afternoon, just as we did yesterday. It has been good to cover so many miles in the last couple of days as it is important for my preparation as a race driver, and hopefully tomorrow we will be able to continue doing that."
"We had to adapt the programme today because of the weather conditions," said Christian Silk, "which made learning much about the set-up of the car quite difficult, especially in the afternoon. Nelson had a god day and completed his programme of set-up work in the morning and a race distance in the afternoon. With Fernando we had some minor problems which made for a slow morning, but in the afternoon the car ran without any problems. We did not manage to complete the set-up work we wanted but we did some brake testing instead."
Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld continued to work on the general set-up of the BMW F1.08, following the test schedule as planned. Completing 116 and 109 laps respectively, without any major problems, both drivers collected data aimed at progressing the development of the car.
Both drivers did several practice starts and pit stops to check the car's systems under these special conditions. The strong winds, which affected lap times significantly and made aero work difficult, also interrupted the scheduled long runs during the afternoon.
Tomorrow's programme includes more development work on the aerodynamic and mechanical set-up of the F1.08.
Heikki Kovalainen joined Lewis Hamilton in Jerez as the test plan switched to a focus on longer runs. Unfortunately, due to the conditions, the English driver finished shortly after 15:00. The team subsequently chose to focus on preparing his car for tomorrow's running. Kovalainen continued to the end of the session, with his programme switching to shorter runs.
While Sebastian Vettel finished eighth quickest, his French teammate, Sebastien Bourdais, was sidelined in the garage for a while with a mechanical problem. Both STR2Bs are now running the latest spec front suspension and the two drivers completed a couple of long runs, with the car seemingly going well in race trim.
Work on aerodynamic component testing, the balance of the car, race preparation and general set-up work was also on the agenda, but progress was hampered by the strong and inconsistent winds.
For Honda, Rubens Barrichello continued his running in the RA108. He focused on chassis set-up work alongside a race start programme covering 58 laps in total.
Jenson Button joined the team this morning and continued the programme begun by Alex Wurz yesterday in the second chassis. He ran through a series of aero evaluations alongside general set-up work to complete 85 laps.
Wurz will re-join the test tomorrow alongside Button for the final day of this week's test.
Splitting the two Hondas was Takuma Sato in the Super Aguri SA07B. The Japanese driver spent his day, his last in the SA07B, running through a number of set-up optimisation tests whilst continuing to work with the new MES system, including start work. The Leafield based outfit is confident that it has collected a good amount of data to analyse ahead of the test at Barcelona next week.
Anthony Davidson will conclude this week's programme tomorrow.
Adrian Sutil took over from Tonio Liuzzi for Force India, the German following on from his teammate's progress yesterday. However, the high winds interrupted his planned programme as he struggled to find a good balance. He concentrated instead on race simulations, starts and putting more mileage on the new parts tested yesterday, completing 86 laps with no major mechanical problems. Giancarlo Fisichella will conclude the test tomorrow.
"Even though the weather today was clear, the winds were so strong that it was difficult to do any real work on set-up as we had planned," said Sutil. "Sometimes the balance was good, sometimes it was bad and you just couldn't tell very much from the laps. We still managed to do 86 laps though with no mechanical problems, which is useful, particularly after we had a shortened day last time."
"After Tonio worked yesterday on the braking system and gearbox development, there was no real balance to be found today because the wind was simply too strong," admitted Dominic Harlow, chief race and test engineer, "so the team concentrated on race simulations and system checks as the remaining laps of testing before the first race of 2008 are counting down rapidly."
With Fernando Alonso on duty today, crowd numbers were up, with some claiming that almost 5000 fans were in attendance. However, thankfully, everyone was well behaved.
To check out our Jerez test gallery, containing over 100 pictures, click here