22/02/2006
NEWS STORY
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With just over two weeks to go before the first race of the 2006 season, Kimi Raikkonen gave his team a much-needed boost at Barcelona today, posting fastest time of the day and completing 96 trouble-free laps.
With improved weather conditions from yesterday and a dry track for the whole of the session, Kimi and teammate Juan Pablo Montoya covered over 840km between them. This was despite nine red flag stoppages, caused by the other teams, which led to interruptions to the running and did not allow McLaren to complete as much mileage as it would have liked.
Kimi completed 440km over the course of his 96 laps, while Juan Pablo, who covered 400km over 87 laps, put in the eighth fastest time of the day, a 1:16.538.
The Colombian and the Finn will be in action for the final day of the test tomorrow.
Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella were on track for Renault, continuing the technical programme begun with the R26 in January. After small software problems stopped both cars on their installation laps, the drivers waited for ideal track conditions before continuing their programme - which happened in the early afternoon.
Fernando focused on tyre development with Michelin, concentrating particularly on chassis set-up with these tyres. On the other side of the garage, Giancarlo Fisichella completed an incident-free race distance and was pleased with the car's performance today, taking second position with a lap of 1:15.500.
"It was another good day," said Alonso. "We did lots of laps, and completed the programme without any big problems. It was very windy today, which can be a bit unsettling at the wheel, but I am pleased with the work we did, and particularly with the car balance."
"We had a small problem this morning," admitted Fisichella, "but that didn't stop us completing the programme today. I am very pleased with what we did today, and with the performance. Our priority was to complete the programme, and we did 93 laps, which is a very good total. The car is behaving very well, it is consistent and we have made good progress on the set-up. It was another very productive day."
"We had a rather laborious start to the day with software problems on the cars, but it wasn't as bad as it seemed," said Christian Silk. "The track conditions were not suitable for running, so we didn't realise lose any useful running time.
"We solved the problems quickly, and had a very efficient afternoon's running. Both cars did a lot of laps, and the drivers are very happy with it - especially Giancarlo, who was testing the new aero package for the first race."
Both Honda drivers, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello drivers spent the morning session completing system checks whilst waiting for the track to come up to a suitable temperature. Jenson completed 25 laps in the morning session, with Rubens completing 21 laps.
In the afternoon, Jenson completed a chassis set-up programme, alongside an evaluation, as he continued to work on improving the balance of the car. Rubens also ran through set-up work in the new chassis, alongside an aero evaluation.
Jarno Trulli joined Ralf Schumacher to carry on testing the long-awaited aerodynamic package, which Toyota introduced last Tuesday at Vallelunga. In addition to testing the new aerodynamics, the team practiced a few pit stops and continued gathering data on the Bridgestone tyres.
"Today was a reasonable day for testing," said the Italian. "We worked on gathering information about the new car, the new aerodynamics and how the tyres work. We did a lot of long runs and I am pleased with the development. The tyres are getting faster and the car is showing promising results. I am looking forward to putting some more mileage on the car this week to see how we compare to the other teams for the coming season."
"Today we had encouraging results," added his German teammate, "although we had to wait until the circuit had the right temperature this morning, but then we could go out and finally test the new car. My impression of the new aerodynamic package is very positive and what I expected. It was unfortunately not possible for me to drive in Vallelunga with the poor weather conditions, but according to Jarno's experience last week and those from today, it has met our expectations. It is still early to say where we stand, so we will have to wait and see."
"We can be pleased with the running throughout the day," said Mike Gascoyne. "Both drivers seem to be optimistic. Today, we were trying to get the tyres to work in the right operating window as well as improving the warm-up and getting the first lap in. But in the long run, we are heading in the right direction. We had a small tyre puncture on Jarno's car, but nothing major to be concerned about. Aerodynamically we have seen today that we are achieving what we expected, and tyre-wise we still have work, but as far as the chassis side and mechanical reliability are concerned, we have no real worries heading towards Bahrain."
Red Bull was the first to admit that today was a "bad day of testing". The plan was for both its race drivers to go through an on-track dress rehearsal for the Bahrain Grand Prix, but things did not turn out that way for David Coulthard and Christian Klien.
After a single installation lap, both drivers, in line with several others, opted to stay in the pits until the track had warmed up. When they went out at midday, Coulthard's engine failed and Klien's gearbox packed up in quick succession.
"David had a fresh engine, but it was not to the latest specification that we plan to run in Bahrain," said Chief Test Engineer Ian Morgan. "Christian's gearbox was quite high mileage, but we would not have expected it to fail when it did.
"Because he had a Bahrain spec engine, it was important to put as many miles on it as possible, but both guys lost a lot of track time, especially David, who only returned to the track with half an hour remaining."
Both race drivers are back on track tomorrow, when the plan is for them to run through a qualifying and race simulation. Fingers crossed.
If Red Bull had a bad day, it was a nightmare for WilliamsF1, which had topped the timesheets yesterday, courtesy of Mark Webber. Today the Australian could only manage eleventh quickest, over 3s off Raikkonen's pace. Meanwhile, Nico Rosberg failed to post a time, completing just two laps.
"Mark spent the whole day doing long runs on different tyre casings to look at improving degradation," said Sam Michael. "We made good progress and will continue with this in the short term.
"Unfortunately, Nico didn't manage to record any timed laps today due to gearbox problems. Both Mark and Nico will be driving again tomorrow."
Midland continued with Tiago Monteiro who shared an M16 with Christijan Albers.
In the morning, Tiago completed some Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) control systems tests followed by a tyre programme before handing over to Christijan. The Dutch driver successfully completed the team's tyre programme with Bridgestone.
"I had a short but efficient day," said Monteiro. "It was very cold in the morning, which cut short the number of laps I could cover. Once the track warmed up, though, we made a few runs to determine our tyre choices for the first two races. No performance runs today, just checking tyres and control systems.
"Overall, I think we had a good performance day yesterday and a good testing day today.
"Now, I'm looking forward to shaking down the second M16 next week, and then gearing up mentally for the first race. Bring it on!"
"It was unfortunate that it was so cold this morning, because it was very difficult to get sufficient heat into the tyres and we lost a lot of track time as a result," added Albers. "I'm glad I could cover the number of laps I did, though and the session went very well.
"Tomorrow, we will be running a tyre program with Bridgestone over the course of a complete race distance. Hopefully, there won't be any red flags interrupting the run.
"We will probably also attempt a qualifying simulation and continue making adjustments to improve the car."
Yuji Ide completed 43 laps in the Super Aguri SA05, as the Japanese team showed definite signs of improvement after yesterday's difficult public debut. This was Ide's F1 debut, other than last week's shakedown at a British shakedown, the Japanese driver still needing to complete the requisite mileage for his superlicence - which, according to a Super Aguri spokesperson, is "in the pipeline".
Although the SA05 was 9.2s off the pace, the team is hopeful that the new aero package due to be run at Silverstone next week will make a great difference.
"Today was Yuji's first run in an F1 car during an official test," said Mark Preston. "The main aim of the day was to allow him to acclimatise himself to F1 levels of downforce and power, and to put further mileage onto the SA05 systems car.
"Running was halted by an electronics problem on the gearbox, but Yuji completed 44 laps which is encouraging progress for the team."
Weather
Air temperature: 6-14 C
Track temperature: 7-23 C
Sunny and cold
To check out our Barcelona test gallery of 160 pictures, click here