COME RAIN OR COME SNOW
The change in weather conditions at the Circuito de Catalunya brought an early stop to the Panasonic Toyota Racing testing programme. Although wet weather was expected and the programme called for wet tyre and set-up testing on the final day of this Barcelona test, mother nature decided otherwise. Extremely cold temperatures, rain and sleet are conditions that can be dangerous and are not necessary to simulate a race weekend. Therefore, the decision was made to wrap up the team's programme around lunchtime and concentrate on next week's test in Valencia.

Pascal Vasselon, General Manager Car Design and Development explained why wet tyre testing in extreme cold temperatures is not pursued: "It could have been a good day to test wet tyres if we had temperatures above 8 or 10 degrees Celsius. It is impossible to run modern Formula 1 tyres in such temperatures as today, which were always less than 5 degrees. We are looking forward to testing some wet tyres, to get used to them and to see the crossover between wet and dry. Obviously, however, this was not possible."

Nevertheless, the results from two of the three testing days were positive and show that the team is making progress. We are looking forward to learning more at the next test.