Jerez Test: Day 1
Wednesday 05 July 2006
Location: Circuito Permanente de Jerez, Spain
Track Length: 4.428kms
Panasonic Toyota Racing started this week's three-day test
programme in a hot and sunny Jerez with third driver Ricardo
Zonta joined by test driver Olivier Panis. Air temperatures
reached over 30 degrees and track temperatures were recorded
at being over 40 degrees Celsius. Although the test programme
this week will focus mainly on preparations for the coming
race at Magny-Cours, today's running concentrated on general
tyre work and set-up.
As Olivier Panis heads home to cheer on "Les Bleus",
his national football team playing tonight in the World Cup
tournament, race drivers Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher
will take on the test work over the next two days.
Ricardo Zonta - Chassis TF106/06
Best lap time: 1m18.743s
Total laps: 99
Total distance: 438.372kms
"Today was spent working on tyres. In the morning I
felt that my car was having problems with grip and as if the
car was sliding a lot. The afternoon went much better and
the grip improved. We also did some aerodynamic testing and
completed some launches. I am feeling more comfortable in
the car and the development is continuously improving."
Olivier Panis - Chassis TF106/10
Best lap time: 1m19.059s
Total laps: 85
Total distance: 376.38kms
"Today I mainly worked on general tyre construction
tests having to deal with a lot of graining and I felt the
track was not very clean. Although we are starting to set
a better pace, which we can see from Jarno's performance at
Indy, we still have a lot to improve. Yet I think we are able
to fight for points, and this is necessary to stabilize the
team. The B-car is an improvement but we still have to work
on reducing the gap to the leading cars."
Gerd Pfeiffer, Test Team Manager
"This was the first time we tested the TF106B in Jerez
and we have a long agenda here. In addition to race preparations
for Magny-Cours, we are also testing various new parts in
the car and gaining data on different tyre constructions.
Today's testing was to gain more general data that will be
used for future races, whereas tomorrow our race drivers will
concentrate on specific set-up items for the next race."
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