Oliver White
Day two of the Valencia test session kicked off this morning, although the weather wasn’t much better than we had seen yesterday, with rain falling and preventing teams from getting in some serious mileage. McLaren chose to field two drivers, running Fernando Alonso again, and seating fellow Spaniard Pedro De La Rosa in the second car. Renault ran two cars, with both of their drivers for 2007 driving, Giancarlo Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen, and Ferrari repeated with Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa.
But it was Fernando Alonso who again set the fastest time of all, beating Fisichella to the top of the time sheets by 0.2s after 90 laps, not quite the full second we saw yesterday, but another milestone surely for the reigning World Champion. De La Rosa ended the day in twelfth, ahead of his team mate and Raikkonen’s Ferrari.
I had a mechanical problem but I’m not worried – the team is working to find out what happened, and it is always better to have these problems in testing. We will carry on with the programme tomorrow, hopefully with some better weather. Giancarlo Fisichella.
Kimi Raikkonen completed 51 laps of the wet Valencia circuit, but again couldn’t manage to raise himself onto the top of the time sheets. Raikkoen’s team mate Felipe Massa was also running, but finished the day in eighth place, although driving the 2006 Ferrari 248.
BMW and Toyota had another relatively good day, cementing their pace from yesterday and pretty much matching each other in terms of times. Nick Heidfeld edged out Jarno Trulli by 0.3s, and Robert Kubica fisinished in seventh just 0.01s behind. Honda ran Rubens Barrichello and James Rossiter again, and could only manage ninth and tenth place, while Toyota’s other driver, Ralf Schumacher, went away with eleventh.
As with yesterday, Super Aguri managed to compete with Red Bull Racing, and Takuma Sato set a pace that was 1.1s faster than David Coulthard. This is surprising as again Super Aguri ran their interim car, while Red Bull ran their new 2007 challenger, designed by Adrian Newey. I must admit, I am starting to have a few doubts with RBR – let’s just hope the team aren’t bothered too much about lap times at the moment. Also running for Super Aguri was Giedo van der Garde, but the Dutchman hopes to continue his testing duties further in order to get enough mileage to be rewarded with a super license.
1. Alonso – McLaren – 1m12.558s
2. Fisichella – Renault – 1m12.731s
3. Kovalainen – Renault – 1m12.769s
4. Raikkonen – Ferrari – 1m12.869s
5. Heidfeld – BMW – 1m13.006s
6. Trulli – Toyota – 1m13.296s
7. Kubica – BMW – 1m13.306s
8. Massa – Ferrari – 1m13.559s
9. Barrichello – Honda – 1m13.658s
10. Rossiter – Honda – 1m13.733s
11. Schumacher – Toyota – 1m13.843s
12. De La Rosa – McLaren – 1m14.277s
13. Nakajima – Williams – 1m14.406s
14. Sato – Super Aguri – 1m14.823s
15. Coulthard – Red Bull Racing – 1m15.948s
14. Van Der Garde – Super Aguri – 1m26.348s
I was shocked with the RBR laptime today I must admit (Yesterday Webber spun when it was damp and he had to be towed back, I’m sot so sure he got out again when it dried up).
But reading the lap times during the day, Coulthard was 4th at lunchtime when it was wet all morning (the best time at that point was a 1:18 or something) and then it obviously dried out in the afternoon, yet DC only did one more lap so they might’ve had a technical glitch or something *shrugs*
I hope so, because the two days testing times don’t paint a pretty picture for Newey’s spanking new car. Still, how many times have a team gone uber-fast in testing only be lost in the midfield come race day? [ahem]Honda[/ahem] It works both ways, so there’s hope yet.
On the RBR subject, remember that it was a late bloomer compared to the other cars in terms of when it actually began testing, plus the Super Aguri’s had a full year of development behind them (being last years car of of course). And also remember, Adrian Newey moves forward with new pens, even on budget constraints. You will rarely see a new car actually be slower then the last (eventually at least). Let’s hope their engineers can translate data into good setups, preferably before Australia! (And god help the ridiculously late Toro Rossos!)
I second your last sentence there Bo Punk 2.0: Toro Rosso are leaving it very late indeed…