Montagny quickest on final day at Jerez

11/03/2005
NEWS STORY

Renault's Franck Montagny topped the timesheets on the final day of testing at Jerez.

In the morning, the circuit was wet following overnight rain, and consequently there was limited running. However, Heikki Kovalainen did use the opportunity to run Michelin's latest wet tyre, a product he had not tested before.

In the afternoon, once the sun made an appearance, Renault made good progress with its tyre development programme, focusing principally on Bahrain and longer-term development. Montagny primarily conducted performance runs, while Kovalainen concentrated on endurance runs.

"We concluded our short session in Jerez with a productive day's work," said Christian Silk. "As soon as the circuit had dried, we were able to run trouble-free and to take a good step forward with our tyre development. We mainly looked at solutions for the coming races, and were once again pleased with the performance and promise of the Michelin tyres."

Because of the damp conditions in the morning, both McLaren and Toyota opted to head home, preferring to hold on to a day from their 2005 test allowance. This means that the Japanese team only had one day's running here.

BAR continued with the programme it has carried out since Wednesday, with Bernoldi in the 'hybrid' car and Davidson in the 007. Between them the Brackley duo completed 204 laps, finishing second and third quickest.

At one point, Davidson suffered an engine failure which left him stranded out on the track and resulted in a red flag period. In the afternoon he rejoined the test with a new engine to complete his planned aerodynamics programme and a total of 105 laps.

Bernoldi continued his morning programme after waiting for the track dry and in the afternoon completed longer runs on the Bahrain option tyres. He clocked 99 laps and completed an impressive 1,528 kilometres on his Honda engine to reach the target mileage.

Antonio Pizzonia was fourth quickest in the sole Williams, the Brazilian today completed a comprehensive programme of set-up work and tyre testing in preparation for the next two rounds of the season in Malaysia and Bahrain.

The team paid particular attention to the FW27's cooling systems in anticipation of the extreme temperatures the cars will face in Sepang.

Ferrari's Luca Badoer and Marc Gene were both more than 2s off the pace. Once again, the Italian was at the wheel of the F2005 as he concentrated on set-up work, while the Spaniard, driving the F2004M, completed the Bridgestone tyre programme aimed at the forthcoming Malaysian Grand Prix.

The F1 teams are not due to return to Jerez until June 21.

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Published: 11/03/2005
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