Toyota trying setups to suit Bridgestones

Panasonic Toyota Racing today completed the last day of this week's test programme at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia. Ralf Schumacher and Ricardo Zonta were at the wheel putting in work on set-up and on the team's new Bridgestone tyres. Both had productive days, putting in a lot of laps and collecting useful data.

Ralf Schumacher concluded another week of winter testing with focus having been on the tyre programme.

Ralf Schumacher - Chassis TF106/02
Best lap time: 1m11.843s
Total laps: 72
Total distance: 304.0km
"Today we did many runs working on the car with different set-ups. We ran really well without any major problems and were therefore rather successful, so it was a good day. We are heading in the right direction with the tyre testing and when the new aerodynamic package arrives in the coming tests, we will see how competitive we are going to be."

Ricardo Zonta rounded off his final testing day in Valencia, adding mileage to the engine and putting in quite a few laps.

Ricardo Zonta - Chassis TF106/01
Best lap time: 1m11.938s
Total laps: 115
Total distance: 460.0km
"Today was a long day and we were able to put in a lot of laps. We spent most of the time doing tyre tests and trying out different set-ups. This week has been about getting as much data as we can to improve the car and see how much progress we can make. For today's tyre tests I did some short runs of five laps each, but mainly we were trying to see the consistency over longer runs. We didn't have any reliability problems so it was a positive day."

Panasonic Toyota Racing today completed its three-day test at Valencia with reliable performance from both cars.

Dieter Gass, Chief Engineer Race and Test
"I think we had quite a positive test over the three days in Valencia. The car was running very reliably and therefore we got a lot of work done with the tyres. We made some interesting progress with the tyres, trying some new specifications and working on the car set-up to adapt to the Bridgestone tyres. Next week in Jerez we will work again on a similar programme, studying how to obtain the right temperatures to make the tyres perform properly."