ETIHAD ALDAR SPYKER FORMULA ONE TEAM TEST REPORT
ITALY T35 - Day Two
30 August 2007 - The new Etihad Aldar Spyker Formula One
Team's B-spec challenger racked up more miles on its second
test day at the Autodromo di Monza, Italy. Sakon Yamamoto,
participating in his first-ever test session for the team,
put in 415km despite the torrential rain and thunderstorms
that hit the circuit in the morning. Over the course of the
test, the new car has now completed over 850km, just shy of
three race distances.
The team's running was limited in the morning as rain lashed
the track, but as the storms abated around 13:00, began its
programme of long runs, tyre comparisons and working on set-ups
for the forthcoming race.
The team will now return to its Silverstone base and will
not participate in the extended test day tomorrow.
Team quotes
Dominic Harlow, chief race and test engineer
'A huge thunderstorm greeted the team this morning as we arrived
at the circuit and it rained almost continuously until 13:00
when the skies began to clear and the track slowly dried.
Despite this weather limiting running to the afternoon session
only, a useful 72 laps were completed with Sakon and the team
working incredibly hard to complete this impressive total.
Of course with the limited time we concentrated on the fundamentals
of race set-up and tyre comparison, along with a fix for the
problem that affected both car's pitstops in Turkey last week.'
Sakon Yamamoto
'Today was a strange day as it was torrential rain and thunder
in the morning and we couldn't do any running at all. Obviously
it's a bit disappointing as we wanted to put more mileage
on the car, but when the rain stopped we were able to do some
good longer runs. Considering how much it rained, we did do
quite a lot of laps and I was happy with the progress we made.
It's difficult to compare the A and B-spec cars as the tracks
are so different - Istanbul is very high downforce, while
Monza is very low - but the car felt easier to drive. Overall,
it was good preparation for next week and we got some good
settings for the race.'
Testing data
Driver: Sakon Yamamoto
Track: Autodromo Nationale Di Monza, Italy
Best lap time: 1min 26.384
Laps completed: 72
Kilometres completed: 415km
Air temperature: High of 25 C
Track temperature: High of 30 C
Weather: Torrential rain and thunderstorms during the morning
clearing to cloudless sky, warm
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