Heikki Kovalainen was quickest today at Paul Ricard, as Renault, Toyota and BMW joined McLaren, which had the French track to itself on Tuesday.
Where the winter testing programme had focused on preparing for the opening flyaway races, attention now turns to the European campaign, beginning with the San Marino Grand Prix on 23 April.
Heikki Kovalainen completed a major tyre development programme with Michelin today, in preparation for the European races. It proved an interesting day, with plenty of data collected and at the end of which the Finn took fastest time.
"After overnight rain, the poor track conditions this morning meant we couldn't begin our programme immediately," said Christian Silk, "so we began by completing some basic checks with a brand new chassis. As soon as the track had improved enough, we worked on tyre development and chassis set-up.
"I think we found some good directions, and we need to check these tomorrow before recommending them to the race team. The car ran very well today, and we found a good balance straight away. It was certainly a very positive day for the team."
Once again, Pedro de la Rosa and Gary Paffett were on duty for McLaren, as the action switched to the 3.8 km, 3E SC configuration, which will be used for the remainder of the week.
After completing the shakedown of the team's latest chassis yesterday, Pedro's work focused on putting more mileage on the car, which was running with some development components which are scheduled to make their race debut in Melbourne. The Spaniard's day was formed of a series of short-medium length runs, as he completed Michelin tyre programmes in preparation for the Imola race.
Paffett began his Michelin development programme today, having had to remain in the garage yesterday due to the wet weather conditions. The Englishman was focusing on the selection process for the forthcoming Australian and San Marino Grands Prix.
Both drivers will be present tomorrow.
BMW had Robert Kubica on duty. After carrying out a number of practice starts, in order to optimise various settings, the Pole continued with an aerodynamic validation programme. He then did a long run to gain specific data on cooling. In the afternoon, the team carried out a tyre test programme for Michelin.
Tomorrow, Nick Heidfeld will begin preparations for the San Marino Grand Prix, in addition to continuing with the aerodynamic validation programme.
After showing signs of an improvement in Malaysia, Toyota arrived at Paul Ricard with a long list of test items to get through in preparation for the upcoming race in Australia.
The team is focussing on the tyre programme, especially running through different set-ups and tyre temperatures to gain data on the overall behaviour of the car with the tyres.
Like many of the other drivers present, Ralf Schumacher and Ricardo Zonta were hampered in the morning by cool weather, however once temperatures improved, both drivers were able to get to work, though the German's efforts were compromised by electrical problems.
"In general it was very cold," said the German, "so we were suffering with the warm-up of the tyre temperatures. In the afternoon, I put in some running but had some electronic issues and therefore stopped the car to prevent any further problems. Although the day does not seem as successful, the team will carry on with Jarno and Ricardo tomorrow and I am sure that we will gain some insight for the next race."
"We had a slow start in morning and had to therefore wait for warmer temperatures," added Zonta. "At lunchtime, we really began working on our tyre programme, achieving everything we had planned. I was driving the old car trying different compounds, different temperature settings on the tyres, and balance set-ups. We will continue to work on some different items and tomorrow should be better as the temperatures are supposed to rise."
While Schumacher finished up his testing for the week and now heads to Australia, Gerd Pfeiffer, Test Team Manager commented on the day's testing: "We did some construction tests today to see that we get a good temperature in the tyres with different set-ups on the car. We have found some interesting results and we will continue to work on this for the next two days. We have decided to change the driver line-up for tomorrow, exchanging Ralf with Jarno, as we are anticipating bad weather on Friday and this will give Jarno an equal opportunity to put in some good running."
Tomorrow, Jarno Trulli will join Zonta.
Weather
Air temperature: 23 C
Track temperature: 24 C
Dry with sunny spells
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