Positive day for Toyota
After the torrential rain yesterday at Barcelona, today marked a return to more predictable Spanish April weather. The sun was out for the entire morning and even though clouds arrived after lunch and the winds picked up, the track stayed dry.
Panasonic Toyota Racing took advantage of the better conditions, putting in a full day of running at the Circuit de Catalunya with Jarno Trulli at the wheel. put in over 100 laps as he made the most of his first run with the car’s new aerodynamic package. Toyota will return for the final day of the extended test tomorrow with Ralf Schumacher at the wheel.
Jarno Trulli - Chassis TF107/01
Best lap time: 1m 22.039s
Position: 3rd
Total laps: 107
Total distance: 498.1km
“I spent the day working on set-up and configurations for next week’s Spanish Grand Prix. It was good to try out the new package, which has many new parts to help our performance. It seems like a step forward but it’s difficult to draw too many conclusions from today because the conditions have been a bit strange. The track was wet yesterday and it was gradually drying out during the morning. There has also been quite a lot of wind, which has a major effect on set-up around here. Still, the day has gone quite well, we put in a number of short and long runs without major problems and we’ve gathered a lot of data that will be useful for the grand prix weekend.”
Gerd Pfeiffer, Test Team Manager “That was a positive day and we made it through a lot of good work. We spent our time working on set-up for next week’s Spanish Grand Prix and we were able to collect a lot of useful information. The track was green early on but by the afternoon it was consistent. The only main problem was that the wind, which started to pick up around lunch and kept changing direction, making it hard to fine-tune the set-up. We lost a short amount of running with a gearbox control problem in the afternoon but we still made it through over 100 laps. Jarno was happy with what we’ve achieved so it has been a good preparation for next week.”
