30/03/2007
NEWS STORY
Heikki Kovalainen gave himself and his Renault team a much needed boost of confidence, one week ahead of the Malaysian Grand Prix, by posting the fastest time of the day on the final day of testing.
After yesterday's mixed weather conditions, which led to all the teams staying on for a further day, today, the sun stayed out until the early afternoon, when a shower kept the track wet until shortly after 16.00.
The Finn continued his work from Wednesday as he focused on set-up solutions. He completed a qualifying simulation at the end of the morning's running, setting the best time of the day (1:35.757).
The primary goal for the afternoon was to work on long runs. However, the programme was interrupted by a mechanical failure. The conclusions from the day's running were positive nevertheless, and the team's work this week will hopefully provide a solid baseline for the first day of practice in Malaysia, a week today.
"We completed our programme on an encouraging note after a good day's work," said Christian Silk. "We worked hard throughout the week, and we seem to be moving in the right direction.
"We made a number of changes overnight," he revealed, "and they seemed to work well out on track today. There is still a lot of progress to be made, but we are moving in the right direction, and I think we got the maximum from our week's running in the circumstances.
"Heikki seems comfortable at this track, he learned it quickly and is in good shape going into next week's Grand Prix. That was another important objective for this session, that we have achieved successfully."
Second quickest, and just 0.055s down on the Finn was Felipe Massa who was trying out various different settings on the F2007, as well as evaluating some new components and electrics. The day was entirely trouble-free for the Brazilian.
Third quickest, and no doubt of considerable concern to Spyker, not to mention several other teams, was Anthony Davidson in the Super Aguri. Although the Englishman was almost a second behind the Renault and Ferrari, he was well ahead of several, far more prominent, runners, not least the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton, yesterday's pace-setter.
The Englishman and his team used today's final day of testing to analyse the two Bridgestone Potenza tyres available and continue with set-up, control systems and aero settings ahead of next week's race.
"It was not a straight forward week for me," said Davidson. "Taku had a good couple of days when the weather was fine and the general balance of the car was good. When I took over in the afternoon (Wednesday) I was expecting a nice balance, but I couldn't get to grips with the set-up. We thought that we could work on it the following day but we had rain on and off which interrupted the test. During the dry running we were able to move the car in the right direction, but we just ran out of time.
"Today we completed half a day's running with the tyres and engine mileage we had left," he continued. "I felt more confident in the car and the lap times were quite good, but even so we have a lot of work to do on the long run balance next Friday. The test here has been very valuable for me as it is a circuit that I did not know well and I have learnt a lot from our time here this week."
"A solid week's testing with excellent reliability and a good deal learned in preparation for the forthcoming race," said Super Aguri Sporting Director, Graham Taylor. "Taku had a very good run on Wednesday and it was pleasing to see that Anthony is well on the mend from his Melbourne injury."
Fourth quickest was Nico Rosberg in the Williams, the Grove outfit continuing to make good progress and keep (rivals) Toyota in place.
"We've completed the four day test in Sepang with another day exceeding 100 laps bringing our total mileage for the four days to just over 2,100km," said Tim Newton. "Nico worked through a program of set-up changes and cooling system tests in the morning, in the afternoon the rain gave us a chance to try both types of wet tyres and wet to dry set-ups. Everyone at the test has been working hard in hot conditions for the whole week, which will pay dividends at next weekend's race."
Indeed, it was Toyota test driver Franck Montagny who finished fifth quickest, albeit 0.2s down on the Williams. On the final day here, the Frenchman's task was again to fine tune the TF107 in advance of the Malaysian Grand Prix. He needed a precautionary engine change but rapid work from the mechanics to complete the work saw him back on track just over an hour later and several set-ups were tried to give the team more vital information as the race weekend at Sepang draws near. Montagny got through the afternoon session with no technical problems but the downpour changed the programme slightly.
"It was good to be back in the car because this is a new circuit for me, Tuesday was my first time driving here," said Montagny. "It has been quite hot and the first day was a little bit difficult but today was perfect so I am happy. It rained quite a bit in the afternoon so we could do some laps in the rain and that gave us a good idea of when we should change to dry tyres. That is important for the race here because quite often you get some drops of rain and now we know the window in which we have to change tyres. We focused on the set-up, continuing the work we started on Tuesday. Some more work was done by Ralf on Wednesday and Thursday and we just followed on. I think it went quite well, we just have to carry on in this way when the race weekend starts. Everybody worked well and I am quite optimistic for the team's chances for this race."
"We had quite a positive conclusion to this test," added Gerd Pfeiffer, "despite Franck's engine change this morning. The guys did a good job to have the car ready again so quickly, which minimised the time we lost. We completed a lot of laps again today, more than a race distance, so we are pleased with that. This week has been useful and we have made progress on the car. The main target was to look at set-ups for the Malaysian Grand Prix and we have tried several different combinations, as well as looking at the two compounds of Bridgestone tyres, so that information should help the team when it comes to the race weekend."
After yesterday's bonfire, Nick Heidfeld was no doubt hoping for a less stressful day today. He was to be disappointed. A technical problem with his engine kept him twiddling his thumbs for the first two hours of the session, the German was finally able to get in some good running. Having lost so much time on Thursday, there was plenty of work on the Bavarian team's 'to do list'.
Consequently, Heidfeld focussed on set-up work for next week's race, then continued with a long run for race preparation and completed his systems work. When the rain began to fall, the team took a short break finally allowing the German back out on wet weather tyres. The track dried out again which allowed further tyre evaluation under the changing conditions, which are not untypical for this circuit.
Once again, Honda had two drivers on duty, with the ideal weather conditions in the morning enabling Jenson Button to continue his planned aero work. Christian took over the car for the afternoon, however his running was affected by the heavy downpour after one run on dry tyres. He switched to wet tyres completing two runs to end the day with 24 laps.
"We have run through a lot of test items this week," said Button, mainly with new aero parts, trying to resolve some of the issues we had in Australia. The car definitely works better around the Sepang circuit, partly because braking stability is not as important here but also because we have made some improvements over the week. We have by no means solved everything yet and there is a long way to go but we have made a small step in the right direction. The weather has been up and down over my test days so I've also had the chance to experience some wet testing for the first time in the RA107 car."
"Our programme for this week's four-day test at the Sepang International Circuit focused mainly on aerodynamic developments," said Jacky Eeckelaert. "We are heading in the right direction, however further performance improvements have to come to get the car in competitive shape.
"We also tested some new developments on the electronics systems with positive results. We will now work as hard as possible to get some good results from the two remaining flyaway races in Malaysia next weekend and then Bahrain."
Having set the pace yesterday, today Lewis Hamilton found himself at the other end of the timesheets, posting the eight best time of the day before handing over to Pedro de la rosa.
Hamilton continued his programme in the morning, concentrating on longer runs. Unfortunately just as the Englishman was coming to the end of his programme his car suffered an oil pipe failure, causing him to stop out on track. The engine was not affected and the mechanics were able to solve the problem quickly.
de la Rosa took over in the afternoon, but his running was limited due to the downpour, meaning he was only able to go out on the dry Bridgestone Potenza tyres at the very end of the session. Consequently, the Spaniard's was the slowest lap of the day.
"The test in Malaysia this week has been very productive," said Hamilton, "with us covering over 1,400km as we push forward with development of the MP4-22. A big focus for this week was evaluation of the Bridgestone Potenza compounds that we will have for the race next weekend. We have managed to get a good understanding of the various performances in the conditions at Sepang. We were also working on finding performance in the car to try and close the gap to Ferrari.
"It was my first experience of driving in Malaysia, and it was tougher than I expected!" he admitted. "The heat in the cockpit is incredible, but I am making sure I keep hydrated when I am at the track and am continuing to train in the heat. These three days have been really useful as part of my acclimatisation process for the race. The circuit itself is great, it is very wide and flowing, and I am looking forward to racing on it."
Having finished second quickest yesterday, Mark Webber will be disappointed to find himself back in the nether regions of the timesheets today, the Australian finishing ninth quickest, over 2s off the pace.
Having previously said that it would not test today, there was a change of heart for Toro Rosso, who had Tonio Liuzzi in action. However, like 'sister' team Red Bull, today was a return to reality for the Faenza outfit which finished fourth quickest yesterday. Today, Liuzzi finished 2.7s off the pace, over 0.7s down on the Red Bull.
"A very good test in terms of the mileage covered and the reliability and performance of the car," was how Red Bull Chief Test Engineer Ian Morgan summed things up. "The heat and humidity did not throw up any problems, although it was tiring for the team who did a fantastic job of work over six days and nights."
"In some ways, this was like an extension of winter testing for us," added Toro Rosso Chief Engineer Laurent Mekies. "We had four busy days and reliability was okay for this stage in the season, but we still have a lot of work to do. The new aero and suspension components produced positive results and we hope to use some of them as early as next week's race."