Another productive day for Spykerf1 at Valencia
Day two of the three-day Valencia test again demonstrated the reliability of the new Spyker F8-VII as Christijan Albers, Adrian Sutil and new test driver Fairuz Fauzy completed 239 laps in total, bringing the team's overall 2007 mileage to more than 3,000km. Today, the focus shifted to testing control systems and tyres, practising pit stops and conducting race simulation work.
Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer, commented, "Today was another productive day. We covered a lot of laps, once again with no mechanical issues. In the morning Fairuz did a very good job to get up to the required mileage to qualify for a Superlicence - he made no mistakes and was consistent throughout his runs. Christijan took over the car at lunch to complete set up work plus evaluate the new Bridgestone Potenza tyres. Additionally, we looked at our performance over one lap and conducted a race simulation with Adrian Sutil. In the longer runs we know the car is consistent, but we are struggling to make the tyres work on first lap. We'll continue to work on this tomorrow."
Making his Formula 1 debut, young Malaysian driver Fairuz Fauzy completed 76 laps in total, with a best time of 1min 14.500. "I was very pleased, especially as I didn't make any big mistakes," commented Fairuz. "The most important thing today was to get the licence, but from now on we can start to try different things."
Christijan Albers added, "Today I did over 30 laps and got some useful information on the performance of the car. Everything will be fresh tomorrow so hopefully we will find some more performance. We know we need to improve in some areas, so we'll continue to work and find the best set-up for this track."
Adrian Sutil put in a full day's test programme in a second F8-VII chassis. "It was a tough day with a lot of laps. This morning we tried out many things, including different diff settings and set ups and also did some tyre testing. This afternoon I did some work over one lap and a race distance. We know we have to improve over one lap but I was pleased with the consistent lap times over the longer runs."
The team remains in Valencia tomorrow for the final day of the three-day test. Christijan Albers and Adrian Sutil will test for the whole day.
