Barcelona Test – Day 2
Location: Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
Drivers: Ralf Schumacher, Jarno Trulli
Track length: 4.730km
BACK TO WORK
Panasonic Toyota Racing continued preparations for the 2007
season on the second day of a three-day test at the Circuit
de Catalunya in Barcelona today. On a cool but sunny day,
race drivers Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli took their turn
to try out Bridgestone's 2007 tyres. Both men were kept busy
as the team worked to improve its understanding of the rubber
and worked on finding the optimum set-ups. Neither Ralf nor
Jarno had driven the car since the season-ending race of the
2006 season in Brazil on 22 October so today's testing saw
them return to 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.
Ralf Schumacher - Chassis TF106B/609
Best Lap Time: 1min 17.359s
Total laps: 92
Total distance: 435.16km
"I have enjoyed the break from driving but it was good
to be back behind the wheel today. We have really started
preparing for next season now, especially in terms of the
tyres. These new tyres have less grip as they are of a different
construction. But they are good to drive on and they make
the car a bit easier to handle. They are a little bit slower
but a bit more sliding is possible so that makes it more fun
and they are also a little bit easier on the limit. It's too
early to say for sure but they seem all right."
Jarno Trulli - Chassis TF106B/607
Best Lap Time: 1min 18.019s
Total laps: 72
Total distance: 340.56km
"It is good to be back driving again even if we didn't
do as many laps as I would have wanted as we had to change
a few things on the car. Obviously today's testing was all
about the tyres and my first impression of the new tyres is
that they are pretty consistent even if they are definitely
a bit slower than last year's. They seem to work well but
we need to work on the set-up in order to make the most of
them."
Gerd Pfeiffer, Test Team Manager
"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. 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."
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