Jerez 6: De la Rosa quickest
Pedro de la Rosa headed the final four runners in testing at Jerez. The McLaren star went comfortably quicker than the representatives of BAR, Renault and Montagny on the final day's running at the Spanish track
The day was all about developing Michelin's intermediate tyres as the French company seeks to narrow the performance gap to rival Bridgestone on wet, but drying tracks. As it was yesterday, the track was artificially dampened with teams using a variety of intermediate tyres on relatively long runs as the track dried out.
De La Rosa was very pleased with his day's work and with one tyre he tried in particular. "We made really good progress on these tyres," said the Spaniard. "Obviously Bridgestone still have an advantage in this area, but we found one set that was very good."
Takuma Sato was next best for BAR and he too found cause to be optimistic about Michelin's progress, despite having a rather hectic day in which a problem forced him to swap cars mid-day and then swap back again once the glitch was fixed.
"We selected a few compounds from yesterday," explained Sato, "for long runs and to run into the dry and there were one or two that were very interesting. It's been a very good day and I'm very pleased that we've completed the programme."
Renault's Franck Montagny and Toyota's Ricardo Zonta completed the runners, both also working in the same direction as de la Rosa and Sato. Montagny had a quick spin without damage, but packed up relatively early, as did Zonta who ran into a catalogue of problems which limited the usefulness of his work.
Pedro de la Rosa (McLaren), 1m26.963s, 93 laps
Takuma Sato (BAR), 1m30.120s, 114 laps
Franck Montagny (Renault), 1m30.459s, 67 laps
Ricardo Zonta (Toyota), 1m31.508s, 78 laps
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