15/03/2009
NEWS STORY
Rubens Barrichello was the quickest of three drivers on duty at Jerez today as the final test ahead of the 2009 season got underway.
Following its sensational test debut at Barcelona last week, the BGP 001 continued to impress today as the Brackley team continue its evaluation and development of the new car prior to the first race.
Barrichello completed 107 laps as he completed a series of set-up and tyre evaluations, in addition to a number of race start simulations. The Brazilian will continue tomorrow morning before team-mate Jenson Button takes over in the afternoon session for the remaining day and a half of the test.
"We had a good day today," said the Brazilian, "completing over a hundred laps. It is hotter than it was in Barcelona last week and therefore more representative of the temperatures that we can expect for the first few races, so it is good preparation for myself and the car.
"The car ran very well once again and we are increasing our understanding of its characteristics every day," he added.
Second quickest was Fernando Alonso, however, the Spaniard's running was cut short in the morning when a trip through the gravel trap called for some repairs to the front end. The afternoon was more productive as the two-time champion began the team's aero programme and completed some practice starts.
Alonso remains in the R29 for his final day tomorrow when he will continue working on the set-up of the car and preparing for the Australian Grand Prix.
"Unfortunately I made a mistake this morning which was a shame as we lost a lot of track time," said the Spaniard, "but sometimes this happens in testing when you are looking for the limits of the car. This afternoon the team put the car together as soon as possible and we tried to complete our main priorities for the day, which was testing some new parts on the car. In the end we managed to do it and we were pleased with the results, although we certainly would have liked more laps. Tomorrow we will try and recover some of the time we lost today."
"We had a difficult start to the day," admitted Christian silk, "but the guys did a good job to get the car back out again for the afternoon. What is important is not how many laps you do, but what you learn in them and we're quite happy with how things went. We had some new things to try out and the performance of the car was good so overall we achieved our priorities for the day."
For Williams, Nico Hulkenberg completed 69 laps, posting a best time 0.779s off Barrichello's pace.
“Nico spent the day working through aero component tests and mechanical set-up changes," said Sam Michael. "No problems were
encountered during the session and the weather looks good for the whole four days we’re here. Nico Rosberg takes over tomorrow.”
McLaren, who last week admitted to having a "performance shortfall", begin their all-important programme tomorrow. Lewis Hamilton is scheduled to drive on Monday and Tuesday before handing over to teammate Heikki Kovalainen for the final two days of the test.