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Grand Prix Tests
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Paul Ricard Test: Day 2
06.04.2006
Dates: 06 April 2006
Location: Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet, France
Drivers:  Ricardo Zonta, Olivier Panis
Track length:  3.818km
Panasonic Toyota Racing continued its three-day test programme at the Circuit Paul Ricard with drivers Oliver Panis and Ricardo Zonta at the wheel. A planned chassis change on Oliver Panis' car caused a delay in the morning; nevertheless, he hit the track in the afternoon to focus on tyre testing for the Imola tyre choice. Ricardo Zonta had a full day of testing also concentrating on trying different tyre constructions for the next race.

IN THE FAST LANE
Ricardo Zonta once again put in a large amount of laps and secured a good lap time for the team.

Ricardo Zonta - Chassis TF106/01
Best lap time: 1m04.655s
Total laps: 133
Total distance: 507.794km


"We tried numerous things today and continued our tyre test. My car was reliable and therefore I could put in a lot of laps. We will do longs runs tomorrow as we did not have enough time to finish them today, because we had to concentrate on gaining results for the Imola tyre choice."

AGAINST THE CLOCK
Due to a change in chassis, Olivier Panis' work day started after lunch, only to be cut short further by some set-up adjustments.

Olivier Panis - Chassis TF106/02
Best lap time: 1m05.524s
Total laps: 47
Total distance: 179.446km


"We wanted to use the race chassis today, which the team did a good job of setting-up in time for the second half of the day. It turned out to be a hard day for me and my team, as we had some issues with different set-ups in the afternoon, but we are still positive and looking forward to tomorrow to finish the tyre testing that we need to achieve."

CIRCUIT DU SOLEIL
General Manager Car Design and Development, Pascal Vasselon:

"Our day has been a little less productive than yesterday, but altogether we are quite advanced now in our preparations for San Marino and Nurbürgring. We are reasonably confident that we have looked at all our options for the tyre choice and we will just finish up some long runs tomorrow. The most positive thing is that the weather is finally similar to race conditions, which allows us to better simulate what we can expect at coming races during the season."