Davidson leads at Jerez test

Three teams continued testing at Jerez on January 18th and Super Aguri's Anthony Davidson was the fastest man of the four drivers on track. He clocked a best of 1:19.628 while analyzing tyres and he also did some low fuel and long runs. Teammate Takuma Sato is scheduled to take over on Friday for the team's last day.

Anthony Davidson.

Photo by xpb.cc.

Giancarlo Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen were again at work in the new Renault R27, second and fourth fastest respectively. Fisichella, who was just over a tenth down on Davidson, focused on set up and tyres, although he stopped on track in the afternoon with an unspecified problem. Kovalainen completed part of a race simulation in the afternoon after being hampered by electronic problems in the morning.

"We had another good day with the R27 as we started looking at some set-up changes, and understanding the handling," said Fisichella. "We made improvements through the day, and the progress confirmed the potential I could feel in the package during our reliability work yesterday."

Kovalainen hopes to catch up with his programme on Friday. "It was a slightly frustrating day for me because we didn't really start our work properly until this afternoon, and after that our focus was to put miles on the car," he commented. "So not a perfect day for me, but at this stage, the important thing is to get a feel for the handling, and make sure the package is reliable -- it's not about setting the stopwatch on fire."

Nico Rosberg was at work for Williams and split the two Renaults with third quickest. "Nico took over driving duties today and we continued with some traction control comparisons," said test team manager Mike Condliffe. "Later in the session, we evaluated various set-up options and tested various software developments in preparation for the launch of the new car."

At Valencia BMW Sauber was running solo, as McLaren only had one shakedown day on Wednesday. Robert Kubica, in the new F1.07, was the quicker of the two drivers, 1:12.310, while tester Sebastian Vettel was nearly 1.2 behind in the F1.06B. They completed over 100 laps between them while running tyre programmes.

Kubica suffered some teething troubles in the new car which the team described as minor but time consuming to rectify. Aside from track work the drivers also undertook some marketing activities. Second tester Timo Glock is scheduled to take over from Vettel on Friday.