Uhr
Panasonic Toyota Racing
Monza/Silverstone Testing Round-Up
Dates: 01 June 2005 (Monza); 02-03 June (Silverstone)
Drivers: Jarno Trulli (01/06, Monza & 02-03/06, Silverstone); Ralf Schumacher (02-03/06, Silverstone) Track lengths: Monza, 5.793kms ; Silverstone, 5.141kms.
Jarno Trulli (Monza) – Chassis TF105/01
Best lap time: 1m22.542s
Total laps: 89
Total distance: 515.577kms
- Jarno, what was the testing programme in Monza?
There are quite a few similarities between Monza and Montreal which, of course, is the circuit that we next race on. There is a lot of high speed running on both tracks and also a lot of heavy braking and so we felt it was worth going to Monza just for a single day. We concentrated on some aerodynamic work for Canada and also some tyre testing that was relevant to Indianapolis. It was a successful day and we got through the full programme.
Jarno Trulli (Silverstone) – Chassis TF105/07 Best lap time: 1m18.865s Total laps: 185 Total distance: 951.085kms
- Nurburgring to Monza to Silverstone to Montreal in just over a week!
Yeah, pretty busy you might say! And it was busy in the car as well. I did over 500kms on Wednesday at Monza, then flew to England and ran over 100 laps on the first day here because we had a big programme of performance tyre testing to work through for the British GP.
- Was Silverstone a successful test?
The circuit conditions were not ideal on the first day because the surface was pretty 'green' and there wasn't much grip at first. That complicates things a little when you are doing performance comparison tests. On Friday we concentrated on more tyre development, this time on longer runs and had some good results. I lost a bit of time in the morning with a precautionary engine change and then we had some typical British weather, which at least allowed us to do some running with intermediate tyres in the afternoon.
Ralf Schumacher – Chassis TF105/06
Best lap time:1m18.568s
Total laps: 149
Total distance: 766.009kms
- Was tyre testing the main focus of your programme as well?
Yes, but as Jarno said the track was still pretty green on Thursday and there was also a cold and variable wind that made things a little bit more difficult. I had a small gearbox glitch on Thursday morning but the team solved that very quickly and we worked all the way through the programme, which was pretty successful. As well as the tyre comparisons we also managed to do some damper evaluation as well before the rain came on Friday afternoon.
- After a good start to the season, how important are the next few weeks?
Very important because we are entering an intensive phase of the championship. We have just run back-to-back races at Monaco and Nurburgring, followed immediately by a test and now we have the flywaway races in North America, which are also back-to-back. Then, shortly after that, the French and British GPs are just a week apart at the beginning of July and so any progress we can make in testing will reap a strong reward.