21/01/2009
NEWS STORY
 |
Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi continued to set the pace at Portimao today as the weather conditions improved, finally allowing the drivers to complete some serious mileage.
While the track was damp in the morning following heavy overnight rain, by midday conditions were improving allowing drivers to finally run on slicks.
Buemi, in the 2008 Toro Rosso, continued to set the pace as he concentrated mainly on suspension systems work. The Faenza based outfit claims the work produced positive results which will be useful for the 2009 car.
Second quickest was Nico Rosberg who completed an impressive 143 laps in the new Williams FW31, the fastest of the 2009 cars present.
"By late morning it had dried out enabling us to run slick tyres on the FW31 for the first time," said Sam Michael. "It was a constructive day as we worked through a lot of the items on our job list, including systems checks, aerodynamic and mechanical performance tests.
"The car reliably completed just over 670kms today on only its third day on track. Kazuki will take over from Nico for the last day of testing tomorrow and for his first run in the new car."
While it was overcast for much of the morning, the gloom was somewhat brightened by the return of Lewis Hamilton (above) to the pitlane, or rather by the flashes on the cameras of the pack of photographers awaiting him and who continued to shadow the World Champion for the rest of the day.
It was the youngster's first taste of the 2009 regulations and the team's new MP4-24 car. Unfortunately, Hamilton was briefly sidelined at lunchtime by an engine systems shutdown, which was quickly rectified without the need to change the unit. In the afternoon, conditions sufficiently improved to allow an '09-spec rear wing and several sets of slicks to be bolted to the car, resulting in the Englishman's best time of 1:30.242.
"It was good to be back working with the team," said Hamilton, "it felt like I'd hardly been away because it was easy to slip back into the routine. It's amazing to think that, while I've been to Woking throughout the winter, I haven't properly driven a Formula 1 car since the Brazilian Grand Prix two months ago, but everything very quickly felt normal today."
"This first test was all about just getting used to the new car and the new regulations and about giving my feedback to the engineers," he continued, "it wasn't about setting a fast time.
"I'm pleased to report that the car feels good, we've made lots of progress over the winter and I'm looking forward to developing the car ahead of the Australian Grand Prix."
"It's going to be an extremely busy winter," he added. "I've only been in the car for one day and our usual job list for the weeks ahead is already enormous. With the limitations on testing during the season, and the few sessions we have over the next two months, this is going to be an intense time and absolutely critical for every team."
At Toyota, Timo Glock got his first chance to put the new TF109 through its paces. A busy start saw the German comparing set-up options, while he also got important experience and information about the movable front wing which is new for 2009. However, at just after 11am his car stopped on track due to an oil pipe disconnection, which caused a small fire and necessitated lengthy repairs. However, he was back on track in the afternoon and will continue testing tomorrow, the final day in Portugal.
"My first impression of the new car is good," said Glock. "I am happy with it. In the morning, on a wet track, I felt pretty comfortable and it was easy to drive; there were no real problems. Then we had the issue with the oil pipe which cost us some time but the guys worked really hard to repair the car and we got some laps at the end in dry conditions. Those first laps on a dry track felt pretty good and gave me a positive feeling but we didn't have time to really set the car up properly. It would be nice to do a lot more laps tomorrow but the weather forecast isn't very good."
"We had no rain thankfully today but still this morning the track was wet and the temperatures were quite low," said Pascal Vasselon. "Due to the limited running we did on the first two days, we had a really busy programme planned for Timo, including set-up investigations, some brake work and preliminary tests on the movable front wing. We were making great progress in the first hours but unfortunately an oil pipe became disconnected and Timo had to stop on track with the car on fire. It took quite a bit of time to clean and repair the car but we managed to complete some laps later in the afternoon and got some interesting data."
Fernando Alonso took over the cockpit of the Renault R29 from Nelson Piquet and completed 86 laps as he acclimatised to the new car and continued with the team's development programme.
Although the track was damp to begin with, the Spaniard quickly switched to slick tyres and was able to give the team its first data from the R29 on
a dry track. The two-time World Champion will remain in the car for a final day of work tomorrow.
"It is very early days with the new car," said Alonso, "and so we keep discovering things and improving our understanding with every lap. There are so many things to learn in a short time and we need to maximise our time on track, so to do so many laps today was a good effort. The programme for tomorrow will be more of the same and hopefully the weather will remain dry."
"It was a better day today and the car ran very well," added Christian Silk. "It was also a busy day as we tried to make up for the time lost to the poor weather earlier in the week and we managed to get a lot of items for the test ticked off. So we have a lot of good information which we will go through tonight and pick out the details from so we can make the most of the final day tomorrow."