Spa-Francorchamps Test Day 1
Location: Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
Driver: Ralf Schumacher
Track Length: 7.004km
SPA RETURN
Panasonic Toyota Racing today took part in the first official
Formula 1 test to take place at Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps
circuit. It is two years since cars last raced at the legendary
venue but this year’s Belgian Grand Prix is scheduled
at the Ardennes track for September. All the F1 teams have
chosen to attend this three-day test, which gives them a valuable
opportunity to begin preparations for that race along with
work for the four events that are scheduled before then. Despite
the usual gloomy forecast for this region, there was no rain
today and much of the action took place in glorious sunshine.
After last weekend’s disappointing race at Silverstone
the Toyota test team returned to work today with Ralf Schumacher
at the helm. Ralf kicked off the week’s work on set-up
and tyres for the race at Spa and carried out comparisons
of dampers and other systems. He will continue the test tomorrow.
Ralf Schumacher – Chassis TF107/03
Best lap time: 1m 47.878s
Position: 4th
Total laps: 70
Total distance: 490.3km
“I’m one of the many drivers who rate Spa as
the best circuit on the calendar so it makes for a nice change
to come here for a test. It is always enjoyable to drive this
track because it is a ‘real’ circuit and it has
so many special corners. They have made some slight changes
to the circuit for this year’s race, including a new
tarmac and an amended Bus Stop, and they seem to have done
a good job. The other major factor at Spa is the weather.
Today we were lucky and the sun shone for most of the day
but the Belgian Ardennes seem to have a climate all their
own and you can never be sure what you are going to get. Today
went well, we had no problems and the car felt good so we’ll
hope for more of the same tomorrow.”
Gerd Pfeiffer, Test Team Manager
“It is good to have the chance to test here before
the race because it enables us to have a preview of the new
track layout. There have been changes made around the start-finish
area of the lap and there is also a new tarmac around that
area. So this week we will concentrate on set-up for the race
here in two months. The drivers can get used to the circuit
and we can work on tyre comparisons with the new surface as
well as race start simulations. This gives everyone a useful
head start for the Belgian Grand Prix. We are also preparing
for the coming races and we put some work on dampers and other
systems today. We completed our programme without major issues
so this has been a positive day.”
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