Good progress for Toyota
Panasonic Toyota Racing had the Circuit de Catalunya to itself today for the third and final day of this week's test after the rest of the Formula 1 circus left Barcelona yesterday. Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli were the only cars in action on a sunny winter's day and they took advantage of the opportunity to continue work on the 2007 Bridgestone tyres.
In order to maximise the performance of the new rubber for next season, Ralf and Jarno tried out numerous different set-ups. The team was able to collect plenty of data and will now look ahead to the next test at Jerez next week.
Jarno Trulli - Chassis TF106B/607
Best Lap Time: 1m15.936s
Total laps: 83
Total distance: 392.59km
"The track temperature this morning was too cold to really do any useful running so we had to wait a bit for it to warm up. Once that happened we were able to resume where we left off yesterday and continue with our tyre testing programme. I had a positive impression of the new tyres and everything seemed to go well. We had a good and learned quite a bit."
Ralf Schumacher - Chassis TF106B/609
Best Lap Time: 1m15.976s
Total laps: 48
Total distance: 227.04km
"We had a very good day yesterday but today was a bit more difficult as we had a few problems. Still, everything has been a little bit easier than I was expecting because I expected the new tyres to be a lot harder to drive. I have found in these two days that they are actually quite drivable. I must say I am positively surprised with the tyres. I am really happy with them, they are good for testing because you can go out every time and do a consistent lap time."
"The team made some good progress in understanding the 2007 tyres and we're pleased with the consistent behaviour and performance we experienced throughout the week. We put in some quite quick lap times and the circuit was for sure in a very good condition after the three-day test this week, with a very high level of grip. Overall we are quite satisfied with the results we have achieved during this test but we still need to be working on improving reliability."
