GETTING THE ALL CLEAR

After so much poor weather at Barcelona over the past two weeks it was a welcome relief for all the teams to have a full day of dry running today. Panasonic Toyota Racing has this week brought two cars featuring its new aerodynamics package for the first time. So race drivers Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock both had busy days as the team collects data in preparation for the Australian Grand Prix on March 16. Both drivers did aero testing today along with work on brakes and set-up. Timo and Jarno will return to the track tomorrow hoping for similar conditions for the last full day of testing before Melbourne.

Jarno Trulli - Chassis TF108-02
Best lap time: 1m 23.023s
Position: 12th
Total laps: 97
Total distance: 451.5km

“We have made good progress today. We made it through a lot of different set-up work and we had a strong long run in the afternoon. The car seems more suited to long runs than to a single flying lap at the moment. So we still have some work to do in order to get a qualifying lap because that is important for the race. But in general it was a positive day.”

Timo Glock - Chassis TF108-04
Best lap time: 1m 23.551s
Position: 19th
Total laps: 80
Total distance: 372.4km

“After all the disruptions due to the weather it was good to get a full day of running at last. But it was a difficult day for me. We spent the day looking at set-up but with all the changes we struggled to make the most of the improved track conditions and the extra grip. So we will have to analyse why that is overnight and aim to make a step forward tomorrow.”

Pascal Vasselon - Senior General Manager Chassis

“Finally we had a full dry day during which we could work quite a lot and move forwards in our preparations for Melbourne. Now we have all the information to decide the aero configuration for race one. The new aerodynamics package we brought here is a clear step forward. Things went quite well with our race preparation for Jarno. We will dedicate tomorrow to refinement but basically we are very pleased with his pace today. Timo was running a different programme and we will have to review the set-up direction with him tomorrow to see how we can help him to progress.”