Toyota: Bahrain test best value

Toyota will run alongside Ferrari and BMW-Sauber in next week's test at Bahrain - with other teams due to run at Jerez in Spain.

And with sunshine all but guaranteed in Bahrain, after the first pre-season test at Portimao was blighted by torrential downpours, Vasselon thinks that the extra dry running teams will get in the Middle East could be valuable.

"For us testing in Bahrain is just the best value for money," said Vasselon, when asked by autosport.com about the value of getting dry running there.

"There is a risk in Europe in the winter of spending your time in conditions that are totally irrelevant in terms of the tyre working window. And this can put in doubt any kind of set-up result you get, because the tyres are not working in the right window.

"All of the couplings between the tyres and the other set-up parameters can be totally wrong. This can cost a lot in terms of pre-season preparation.

"For us it is just common sense to test in Bahrain. We would be ready to drop one of the two European test sessions to spend more time in Bahrain. It is the best value for money and the best preparation for the rest of the season."

Despite Vasselon's claims, however, some rival outfits are not so convinced about the benefits of spending more money in testing in Bahrain.

Williams technical director Sam Michael told autosport.com: "We've never gone to Bahrain testing because the delta between staying in Europe and going out there is well over £300,000, so it's not really conducive to saving costs.

"Most of the time, the weather is not bad through February and March. January is normally the worst month so we just get on with it as we are. It doesn't affect normal development rate, it just affects your normal setup progression.

"If every test was like the we just had (in Portugal), we still had almost a full day in the dry and that's enough for us to see what the tyres do, listen to the driver and see what setup changes it might require for the next test. There was still quite a lot of information that came out of the test we have just had."

BMW Sauber are the only team to have enjoyed a serious amount of dry running with their car, having opted to run their F1.09 in Valencia rather than Portugal last month.

However, even their dry test was marred by strong winds that forced them to abandon some performance running.