Toro Rosso Paul Ricard test notes 2007-05-18

The saying goes that it's a small world and Scuderia Toro Rosso's four day test session would seem to be back up that theory, given that without leaving the confines of Le Castellet's Paul Ricard Circuit, the team was able to imagine itself in Monaco, Montreal and Indianapolis, simulating settings and characteristics for all three of these upcoming races, with the exception that Indy will require different tyre types.

Inevitably, after the Spanish Grand Prix, reliability was a key element of these past four days and the programme here in the South of France was not trouble free. However, all the data gathered means the team now has a better understanding of the problems it faces in this area and there is still a week to go before the Monaco GP, in which to make further progress on the reliability front.

"In terms of performance, we ran across the range of aero settings, from maximum downforce for Monaco on the first two days, to minimum for Canada on these last two and we hope to have a new aero package in time for the Canadian Grand Prix," commented Chief Engineer, Laurent Mekies. "Overall therefore, this has been a productive four days, but we still have a lot of work to do to reach an acceptable level of reliability."

Tonio Liuzzi
56 laps
Best lap: 1:29.993

-credit: toro rosso