13/10/2006
NEWS STORY
The BMW and WilliamsF1 teams concluded their tests at Jerez today, and thereby brought an end to testing for the 2006 season.
Robert Kubica drove on the final day of the test by himself after Nick Heidfeld was unable to take part due to sickness. The German had felt unwell on Thursday evening, but hoped he would feel better on Friday morning. However, after completing an installation lap he realised he was not well enough to drive for the rest of the day.
Therefore, once again, Robert drove both cars, his programme including tyre work for Interlagos, transmission development, systems and aero work.
WilliamsF1 continued with Alexander Wurz and Narain Karthikeyan running Toyota powered cars, both finishing the day over 2s off Kubica's pace. Nonetheless, the team is happy with progress.
"Narain started the last day of the test by completing a race distance this morning and then moved on to a series of set-up evaluations," said test team manager, Mike Condliffe. "Alex, meanwhile, worked on the suspension and a tyre comparison with Bridgestone.
"The test has been very useful in terms of what we have learned about both the gearbox and the Toyota engine, and successful in that we managed to complete race distances with such a new package."