VIRTUAL REALITY

Panasonic Toyota Racing stepped up its preparations for the 2008 season with a Grand Prix simulation today in testing at Bahrain. Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock were given the task of driving during a simulation which included practice, qualifying and a race distance, including fuel and tyre pit stops. The morning- work consisted of practice before a simulated qualifying session while at 1.30pm sharp, the race procedure began and Jarno and Timo proceeded to the grid to begin the test. The TF108s once again showed strong reliability while the pit crew performed flawlessly despite almost four months since the last race of the 2007 season and the information gathered during this simulation will help the team optimise the TF108 package before the start of the season. Jarno and Timo will return their focus to set-up comparisons for the final day of testing in Bahrain tomorrow.

Jarno Trulli - Chassis TF108-03
Best Lap Time: 1min 30.944s
Position: 3rd
Total laps: 91

“It was a good day. We did a lot of laps and successfully simulated a race distance without any trouble. We did some set-up work this morning and the lap times show we are moving forward. We still have work to do but we are definitely going in the right direction and that is very positive. I was pretty happy with the car today, even during the long runs. Obviously there is still room for improvement so we will study the data and push hard to improve our car.”

Timo Glock- Chassis TF108-02
Best Lap Time: 1min 31.213s
Position: 4th
Total laps: 93

“In the morning I did a qualifying run in a Formula 1 car for the first time in a few years, in our Q1 simulation, and that went really well. The Q3 simulation, with a bit more fuel on board, also went well and I had good speed, but when we got to the race simulation I didns have the ideal set-up. It wasns quite what I wanted because the first few laps were good but then the handling dropped off a bit. However, it was a good experience for me and it will help us understand which direction to go in when it comes to setting up the car for a race distance. It was also useful to get experience of driving a full Grand Prix distance because I have not done that since 2004, although I am fit so it was no problem for me.”

Dieter Gass - Chief Engineer Race and Test

“It was encouraging to see the TF108 is a big improvement over the TF107 if you compare the times today with last year- race. We ran different settings during the simulation and it was positive to see how consistent the cars were during the race, especially Jarno- car. We learn about different aspects of the car- behaviour during a race simulation and we are able to compare things between the two cars so we have gained a lot of useful information. Again it was very good to see the TF108 running reliably, which it has done all year so far, and the pit crew did a good job with the four stops we made during the race.”