30/11/2006
NEWS STORY
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Luca Badoer made it three-out-of-three for Ferrari today, as the Italian ensured that the Italian team topped the timesheets for the third successive day.
Badoer was joined by Marc Gene as the team continued the work begun on Tuesday, which centred around endurance running, experimentation with new components and working on finding the best set-up on the 248 F1.
Second quickest was Heikki Kovalainen, as Renault continues to make progress with Bridgestone, with (teammate) Nelson Piquet finishing eighth quickest.
The final day's running proved extremely positive for the two Renault drivers, who completed a total of 212 laps – nearly 2500 km. Kovalainen ran for the first time with the new 2007 gearbox, while Piquet worked on tyre evaluation and data acquisition with the Japanese manufacturer.
"This was a good last day of testing," said Christian Silk. "When we arrived in Barcelona, our main aim was to understand how to run the car, in collaboration with our new partner Bridgestone. We achieved that, which is very positive.
"The whole team put in a lot of effort this week, working late into the night to prepare the cars and analyse the data. And I think the progress we have made over the three days shows the effort was worth it. We will now continue in the same direction, and we hope to have made solid progress by the team we conclude testing before Christmas."
A late improvement saw Robert Kubica finish up third quickest, as he concentrated on tyre testing as well as running a new gearbox. Due to a hydraulic problem the Pole lost time in the morning, but continued in the afternoon with several long and short runs.
For Timo Glock, it was his first day in the F1.06. He used the first laps to familiarise himself with the car and then began working on the set-up. He completed 100 laps without any problems and the team was happy with his work.
"The characteristics of an F1 car is quite different from a GP2 car," said the German, "so it took me some laps in the morning to adapt my driving style. It's a fantastic feeling to drive this car. Particularly in the fast corners where the speed is really impressive. I did many laps today and was able to improve constantly, so I'm really happy, and I'm looking forward to my next test in Jerez."
According to the German team it was a productive test that enabled it to gather a lot information particularly on the new tyres.
Lewis Hamilton completed his third day of testing for McLaren, however, less than a week after being named as the team's number two for 2007, attention was focussed across the Woking team's garage on double World Champion Mika Hakkinen, who was returning to an F1 cockpit after a break of exactly five years.
The Finn took thing cautiously, for in Formula One a lot can change in five years. As the day progressed his times improved, and be the end of the session having completed 79 laps he was just over 3s off the pace.
"It has been an exciting day for me and I have really enjoyed the opportunity to drive a Formula 1 car after a five year break," said the Finn." I spent the morning acclimatising to the environment of the cockpit again and just getting to grips with driving a 2006 car.
"I didn't expect to be quick straight away," he admitted, "and Barcelona is of course a hard track on both the car and driver. It took several laps before I was up to speed, but we were all expecting this to be the case.
"Although it was great fun today I also had to do some serious work for the team, as any feedback I could give them from today's experience will help them with their preparations for the 2007 season. As a result I was really pushing to try and do the best job that I could to assist them in any way possible. We have done some good work today and got some great results."
"This week has been my first test as an official McLaren driver," added Hamilton, "and I have enjoyed every moment of it.
"With the announcement being made last week it has meant that I have been able to come here and really get to grips with driving the car and building a relationship with the team in preparation for the new season.
"It is early days still," he continued, "but this week has been really positive, I have done 920km in the car and the work we have done with the Bridgestone tyres has been really encouraging. I had to spend a little time in the garage on Wednesday whilst team made some changes to the set up, but that is often the case when testing and I need to get used to it."
Honda had Rubens Barrichello and Christian Klien on duty. Both drivers spent the day working through suspension programmes as part of the continuing evaluation of the Bridgestone tyres.
"It's good to be back in the car again after the long break since Brazil," said Barrichello. "I have been working on my training in preparation as the hard work for our 2007 season starts here. It's good to be working with Bridgestone again and we've had a pretty good start to our new relationship. I think we have a decent understanding of how we can begin to maximise the tyres with our car and obviously the team has two more tests in Jerez to continue this development. All in all, a good start to our winter campaign."
"It has been very enjoyable start to my relationship with Honda," added Klien, "and I think I have worked well with the engineers and mechanics. After I had acclimatised to the car and started to understand the way the team operates, I was able to get down to some proper testing, generating some real data and feedback for the team to work with. Working with a new car, a new team and new tyres for the first time is always going to be a challenge but I am pretty happy with my performance here taking into account all those factors. I'm looking forward to Jerez where I am scheduled to run for two days."
Both Toyota race drivers were on duty, both back in action for the first time in over a month. Although the day's work focused on tyre testing, the team also took the opportunity to try out different car set-ups, as well as testing weight distributions.
"Today we continued to learn about the new tyres and gathered a lot of data which will help us get the best out of them," said test team manager, Gerd Pfeiffer. "We are testing different set-ups and trying to find as much traction as possible. Aside from tyres, we were also taking a lot of measurements on the car and refining elements of the 2007 car."
David Coulthard was joined by Michael Ammermuller as Red Bull wrapped up one of its last tests before switching to Renault powerplants.
"We've had a productive three days, collecting a lot of data," said chief test engineer, Ian Morgan, "and we are beginning to get an understanding of the Bridgestones, which are certainly very different to what we had been running
"David's programme ran very smoothly throughout and today, as Mark had other commitments, Michael Ammermuller took his place and actually managed to get through more work than we had expected.
"Next week, we move to Jerez, where tyre work will again be the main priority when we start running on Wednesday, this time with a softer compound to assess."
Anthony Davidson was Super Aguri's sole representative, the Englishman finishing the day thirteenth quickest, ahead of a Red Bull, a WilliamsF1, the Toro Rossos and (two time champion) Mika Hakkinen.
"It has been a positive first test and I have really enjoyed working with my new team," said the Englishman. "We covered a lot of laps in the three days and every day we gained more confidence in each other and the way we work. Reliability was good and our understanding of the Bridgestone Potenza tyres was the key factor of this test and we made lots of progress. I am looking forward to maintaining this momentum at our test in Jerez next week."
"The test plan was completed with a respectable mileage," added sporting director, Graham Taylor. "Working with Anthony for the first time showed both parties a great deal of promise. Cementing Anthony's comments, we gained a lot of knowledge about the 2007 Bridgestone Potenza tyres and how we need to develop to maximize their potential. Overall, we are very satisfied with the reliability of the car and information gathered from this test in Barcelona."
Narain Karthikeyan was on duty for WilliamsF1, the Indian driver being responsible for one of the day's two red flags. The other was caused by Glock.
"Narain started the programme with some bodywork aero comparisons and changes to the front wing," revealed test team manager, Mike Condliffe. "After lunch, we were after Narain's comments on some front geometry changes which we will feed into the FW29 design programme.
"We have completed useful mileage on several new mechanical components as part of their acceptance programme. Next week we will continue the development work in Jerez."
"It was like the first days back at school," said Toro Rosso's chief engineer Laurent Mekies. "Our aim was to understand all the implications of switching to a new tyre supplier. Bridgestone seems to be making a big effort despite the lack of competition.
"We carried out some fairly basic tests as it was our first run on these tyres and let's say there were no bad surprises. It was vital to try and separate the results of car performance and tyre performance, in order to understand what data will still be relevant when we run with next year's car. The drivers also had to adapt their driving styles to suit the new rubber."
Next week, the Italian team continues tyre testing at the Jerez circuit, this time with both drivers, but just one car, when Bridgestone will have a softer compound on hand for evaluation.