Panasonic Toyota Racing today completed its week's testing with a
third day of running at Jerez de la Frontera in the south of Spain.
Following the impressive reliability of the first two days, Jarno
Trulli was forced to miss some of this morning's session after an
oil leak. The test team changed his engine and that ate into much of
the early action when the track was at its quickest.
The afternoon
was more successful and Jarno ended up with a total of 70 laps of
set-up, starts, suspension, brakes and aero work. Toyota's next racing
appointment is next week's Hungarian GP at the Hungaroring, where
similarly high temperatures are expected.
Jarno Trulli:
"The main thing to say about today was that it was
so hot! When the asphalt is as hot as this it makes it difficult to
get consistent data. Still, it was quite a positive day, we tried out
various things in preparation for the next race in Hungary, which is
likely to be just as hot and could be even hotter."
"We missed some track
time in the morning due to an oil leak. There was no breakage but the
problem required an engine change. That made for a busy afternoon
but we carried out some useful work on starts, aero and set-up for
the Hungaroring. In the end we made it through our planned 70 laps."
Gerd Pfeiffer, Test Team Manager:
"Today started slowly for us because
of the problem we had with an oil leak. It started early in the day
and though there was no breakage we changed the engine when the leak
got too heavy. The afternoon was more positive and Jarno's programme
was similar to yesterday's for Ralf. We carried out set-up and aero
comparisons for the next grand prix in Hungary, along with suspension
and starts."
"Overall this has been a good test and it's always important
to run in hot co nditions. This year's mileage restriction for testing
means that there is no room for error. If you take the wrong direction
with any testing you have no margin if you want to keep running at
the end of the year. So we have to budget carefully for the laps we
use. But this week has worked well and gone according to plan."
Jarno Trulli
Chassis: TF107/01
Best lap time: 1m 20.377s
Total laps: 70
Total distance: 309.6km
-credit: toyota
