Jerez Test: Summary

Posted on Thursday 05 Mar 2009 and tagged with jerez, testing.

Kazuki Nakajima concluded this week's five day Jerez test with a first run for the team on Bridgestone's 2010 tyres and some final aero and mechanical set-up work on the FW31. Poor weather dominated the last day in Spain, however, with strong winds somewhat affecting the team's programme of pre-Melbourne preparatory work. By the end of the session, Kazuki had clocked up 54 laps of the 4.423km track and set a best time of 1:22.226.

Hot off the heels of this week's test comes a four day run in Barcelona next week which will see Kazuki return to the cockpit on Monday for the first two days of the session.

Team Quotes:
Sam Michael, Technical Director, Williams F1:
“We finished our five day test in Jerez today with Kazuki running through the 2010 tyre programme for Bridgestone. The tyres are designed to run without blankets, while the fronts will also be narrower than this year’s. Overall, we’ve had a productive week evaluating aerodynamic components and mechanical set-ups, as well as putting valuable mileage on engines and transmissions to be ready for Melbourne. Although we have not completed our programme fully, the Toyota engine’s durability (with the new, longer life regulations) has been extremely impressive.”

Nico Rosberg:
“I managed to get some productive running in dry conditions this week and I covered a lot of mileage. Reliability was also good. We’ve done lots of development work on the car and Toyota seem to have done a great job in modifying the engine to 18,000rpm. Lap times are slower during the long runs, but that seems to be across the board with these tyres and will probably make the racing very interesting. Apart from the long runs, we mainly tested mechanical set-ups and aero parts over my three days in the car.”

Kazuki Nakajima:
“My two days in Jerez were quite badly affected by poor weather. We had strong winds on both days and then some rain this morning as well. When out on track, we worked on our aero package and testing mechanical parts. We had a good run yesterday, doing lots of comparison work, and we now have some good results to take back to the factory. We spent today testing the 2010 tyres which was interesting and it’s given us an idea what running tyres without blankets will be like.”