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Panasonic Toyota Racing
Jerez Test: Day 1
Panasonic Toyota Racing started this week's three-day test programme in a hot and sunny Jerez with third driver Ricardo Zonta joined by test driver Olivier Panis. Air temperatures reached over 30 degrees and track temperatures were recorded at being over 40 degrees Celsius. Although the test programme this week will focus mainly on preparations for the coming race at Magny-Cours, today's running concentrated on general tyre work and set-up.
As Olivier Panis heads home to cheer on "Les Bleus", his national football team playing tonight in the World Cup tournament, race drivers Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher will take on the test work over the next two days.
Ricardo Zonta - Chassis TF106/06
Best lap time: 1m18.743s
Total laps: 99
Total distance: 438.372kms
"Today was spent working on tyres. In the morning I felt that my car was having problems with grip and as if the car was sliding a lot. The afternoon went much better and the grip improved. We also did some aerodynamic testing and completed some launches. I am feeling more comfortable in the car and the development is continuously improving."
Olivier Panis - Chassis TF106/10
Best lap time: 1m19.059s
Total laps: 85
Total distance: 376.38kms
"Today I mainly worked on general tyre construction tests having to deal with a lot of graining and I felt the track was not very clean. Although we are starting to set a better pace, which we can see from Jarno's performance at Indy, we still have a lot to improve. Yet I think we are able to fight for points, and this is necessary to stabilize the team. The B-car is an improvement but we still have to work on reducing the gap to the leading cars."
Gerd Pfeiffer, Test Team Manager
"This was the first time we tested the TF106B in Jerez and we have a long agenda here. In addition to race preparations for Magny-Cours, we are also testing various new parts in the car and gaining data on different tyre constructions. Today's testing was to gain more general data that will be used for future races, whereas tomorrow our race drivers will concentrate on specific set-up items for the next race."