08/05/2009
NEWS STORY
Panasonic Toyota Racing got the European leg of the 2009 Formula 1 season underway with practice for the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona today. Air temperatures reached a high of 25 degrees C and track temperatures 43 degrees C as Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock completed two busy 90-minute free practice sessions. For this race, the TF109 has a revised aerodynamic package and those changes needed to be evaluated on track today. As well as testing these improvements, including a striking new engine cover, both drivers also worked on the two compounds of Bridgestone Potenza tyre in use this weekend. The morning session ended with Jarno setting the second fastest time but the afternoon session was even busier and by the end of the day both drivers had each completed more than a race distance.
Jarno Trulli: "We went through our normal Friday routine of testing tyres and set-up as we get ready for qualifying tomorrow. We also worked to understand what strategy to take in terms of tyres and everything. The tyre testing went reasonably well but obviously we need to analyse the data before we make any decisions. The car is not perfect and it needs to be a bit more balanced before I am happy with it. However, I think the track conditions will change for qualifying so I am not too worried. We have to wait and see what happens tomorrow morning."
Timo Glock: "It was not a very good day for me today to be honest. I was struggling quite a bit with the tyre behaviour in both practice sessions and it is really tricky to understand what the problem was. We have to analyse the results from today and work hard to make an improvement for qualifying tomorrow. I'm not happy with how things have gone today but we won't give up; we will do our best to find a solution."
Dieter Gass, Chief Engineer Race and Test: "Even though I am not too worried about the timing sheets, we have to say it was hard work today. Thanks to an enormous effort from everyone in Cologne, we brought quite a significant aero update for this weekend and with no in-season testing, we had to evaluate it all today. We did a lot of laps and made several comparison runs to get as much information as possible. Obviously you don't have as much time to concentrate on these parts as you do in testing so that makes it quite difficult. As well as evaluating the upgrades, we did quite a lot of tests, mainly on aero, brakes and tyres. We got some interesting results which we will analyse tonight and try to find the best compromise for tomorrow."