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: 1m17.359s
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: 1m18.019s
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."