Formula 1

Raikkonen fastest on last day at Jerez

The week's testing at Jerez came to a close on Friday 21st July and McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen was the fastest man with a best time of 1:17.187. Team test driver Gary Paffett was also at work and was ninth quickest. Tyres, aerodynamic and mechanical ...

Edited: Jul 22, 2006, 12:50 AM

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The week's testing at Jerez came to a close on Friday 21st July and McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen was the fastest man with a best time of 1:17.187. Team test driver Gary Paffett was also at work and was ninth quickest. Tyres, aerodynamic and mechanical development have been McLaren's focus over the past four days.

Kimi Raikkonen.

Photo by xpb.cc.

"We achieved our objectives for the week within the running that was completed and our primary focus now turns to Hockenheim next weekend," said CEO Martin Whitmarsh.

Second on the time sheet was the Red Bull of Christian Klien, just over a tenth off Raikkonen. The Austrian outfit also had David Coulthard and test driver Robert Doornbos on track this week, working on an extensive programme including tyres, aero, power steering and suspension geometry.

"We had a couple of engine and clutch related problems on the first two days, but we completed the programmes all the same," said chief test engineer Ian Morgan. "Overall it has been an encouraging test and it's good to see our car near the top of the time sheet, which hasn't happened in a while."

Honda had Rubens Barrichello and tester Anthony Davidson at work on the final day, third and seventh fastest respectively. "We made improvements and learnt a great deal, particularly about the aero parts that we took to France last weekend and how to improve the set-up of the car to optimise these," said Barrichello. "We also worked on some electronic devices which look to be an improvement."

Renault took the fourth and fifth slots with tester Heikki Kovlainen and Fernando Alonso respectively. Nico Rosberg was on duty for Williams and was sixth on the time sheet but at the time of writing no details were available from Renault or Williams in regard to how their days progressed.

BMW Sauber continued with test driver Robert Kubica and Jacques Villeneuve took over from Nick Heidfeld. They were eighth and 11th respectively and worked on electronics, brakes, aero and tyre tests. With the summer break coming up after Hockenheim, BMW will not be testing again until Monza at the end of August.

Tonio Liuzzi rounded off Toro Rosso's test week with 10th fastest. Scott Speed sat out this test due to suffering back pain after his accident in France, so test driver Neel Jani did the first day and Liuzzi was in the cockpit on Thursday and Friday.

"We evaluated quite a lot of new aerodynamic components, with some positive results, so that some of the parts will be brought into use as soon as next week's race at Hockenheim," said chief engineer Laurent Mekies. "A lot of our time was spent working on traction control and optimising traction in general."

Ralf Schumacher led the way for Toyota in 12th and Jarno Trulli rounded off the times in 14th. Ralf completed his planned programme of tyres and set up but Trulli was delayed until lunchtime with carry-on issues from the car that needed an engine change yesterday.

"Jarno had a delay in the morning due to work on his car, while Ralf did his best to make use of the test day, even though some test items needed to be changed out of his car," said test team manager Gerd Pfeiffer. "All in all, I think the team did a good job considering the circumstances and the results that we have found will be useful."

In between the two Toyotas was the MF1 of Christijan Albers. Tyres and aero development were his programme. Ferrari finished at Paul Ricard, today on the 2A track layout, and tyres and aero and mechanical work was the work for Felipe Massa and Michael Schumacher. Massa was ahead of Michael, the Brazilian's best time a 1:06.470.

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