TEST REPORT - BARCELONA – WEEKLY SUMMARY
Date: Friday 14th April 2006
Location: Circuit de Catalunya, Spain
Drivers: Kimi Raikkonen, Juan Pablo Montoya and Pedro
de la Rosa
Weather: Warm and sunny
Track temperature – high of 35 degrees Celsius
Air temperature – high of 25 degrees Celsius
Laps run: 132
Kilometres covered: Kimi Raikkonen approx. 463km
Juan Pablo Montoya approx. 148km
Total kilometres covered during the test: 1,953
Kimi Raikkonen approx. 1,000km
Juan Pablo Montoya approx. 629km
Pedro de la Rosa approx. 324km
Best lap time of the day and week: Heikki Kovalainen, Renault,
1m13.926 (Friday)
Duration of test: Three days (12th – 14th April)
An intensive three day test for Team McLaren Mercedes finished
at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya today. Kimi Raikkonen
and Juan Pablo Montoya took the total kilometres covered at
the test to just under 2,000, as they continued the programme
of Michelin tyre selection for the Spanish Grand Prix and
set-up work in two MP4-21s.
In today’s session, Kimi covered over 463km as he put
in 100 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya. His fastest time
of 1m14.751 put the Finn in sixth position on the timesheets.
Juan Pablo completed 32 laps and 148km at the Spanish circuit,
and set the seventh quickest time of the day, with a 1m14.879.
The close nature of the times was demonstrated again today,
with under eight tenths covering the top seven drivers.
The running today was interrupted for both drivers with mechanical
failures on the MP4-21s, which with Juan Pablo led to his
car going off track into a gravel trap. There was no damage
to his MP4-21 and the test team were able to resolve the issues
quickly and get both cars back out on track to continue running.
Towards the end of the session, Juan Pablo also suffered an
engine problem, however with under an hour left of the day,
the team took the decision to end his test for the week.
With 18 cars on track for each day of the test, red flag
stoppages limited the action during the week on track. Despite
this, Team McLaren Mercedes were able to complete an productive
week of development work with the two MP4-21s.
Pedro kicked-off the week for the team on Wednesday morning,
a solid day of work saw the Spaniard complete 342km over 75
laps of his home circuit. Kimi joined Pedro on track for the
afternoon session, as the test team had spent the morning
preparing his MP4-21 for action. The car, which had been at
the first three races as the spare car and had under gone
the standard rebuild process, had arrived at the track overnight
from the McLaren Technology Centre. As a result, Kimi completed
just 24 laps on Wednesday, covering 111km with a focus on
the set-up programme for the week.
Testing for Kimi began in earnest on Thursday as he set the
fifth fastest time of the day, with 92 laps his total for
the day. Juan Pablo joined Kimi on track on Thursday, and
the Colombian was able to cover 104 laps as the team started
the Michelin work allocated to the session.
KIMI RAIKKONEN
“It has been good to get back to testing this week in
Barcelona, and continuing the work that the test team has
been covering over the past few weeks since the start of the
season. Although the track has been closed a lot, because
of all the red flags, we have still been able to work through
a lot of development work with the MP4-21 and we are continuing
to make good progress with the car. When you see how close
the times are between the top few cars in testing, when you
are focused on your development programme rather than times,
it shows how much of a competitive season we have ahead of
us this year!”
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA
“My two days at this week’s test at the Circuit
de Catalunya were focused on Michelin selection for the Spanish
Grand Prix, which takes place in a month from now. We have
been evaluating the prime and options with Michelin, with
some interesting results, and have been able to conclude the
process today.”
PEDRO DE LA ROSA
"Although I was only on track for one day, it was a positive
day and we make some positive progress work on the set-up
and general development of MP4-21. It was certainly good for
the test team to have two MP4-21s on track"
Unofficial times*:
Pos Driver Constructor Time Laps
1 Heikki Kovalainen Renault 1m13.926 130
2 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1m14.301 92
3 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1m14.684 86
4 Jenson Button Honda Racing 1m14.709 131
5 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1m14.734 78
6 Kimi Raikkonen Team McLaren Mercedes 1m14.751 100
7 Juan Pablo Montoya Team McLaren Mercedes 1m14.879 32
8 Rubens Barrichello Honda Racing 1m15.016 54
9 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m15.217 76
10 Jacques Villeneuve BMW Sauber 1m15.321 101
11 Mark Webber WilliamsF1 1m15.337 85
12 Anthony Davidson Honda Racing 1m15.578 70
13 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber 1m15.793 101
14 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1m16.040 68
15 Alex Wurz WilliamsF1 1m17.751 21
16 Takuma Sato Super Aguri 1m19.515 13
*no official times available
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