Toyota ups the pace at Spa

Mika Salo was quickest, setting a time that would have qualified him in the top 10 in last year's Belgian Grand Prix.

After struggling to come near their rivals' benchmark times in recent tests, the Finn's lap of 1m52.00s around the 4.32-mile circuit was 1.5 seconds slower than Mika Hakkinen's 2000 pole time and would have put Salo ninth on the grid in last year's race.

"I'm very happy with this test," said Salo. "The team worked very well together to try and solve the many problems we've had in recent tests. I did around 80 laps today (Thursday), which is a good amount of laps by any team's standards.

"We did everything we came here to do, and overall the test was very encouraging."

After curtailing a three-day test at Silverstone last week because of a power steering problem, the Cologne-based outfit encountered no major dramas in Belgium, as Salo conducted set-up work and team mate Allan McNish concentrated on aerodynamic testing.

The team also used its traction control system for the first time, "which worked reasonably well," according to McNish. "It was quite a productive test for us."

General Manager Dago Roher deflected attention away from comparing times of the two drivers, saying: "Both Mika and Allan have been working on very different programmes and so it is pointless and totally unrepresentative to compare their times. However we are very pleased with the progress we made here in Spa."

After the weekend, the team gets straight back to work with another two-day test starting on Monday, this time at the Nurburgring in Germany.

As a potentially significant aside, the test allowed F1 newcomer Michelin to run at the circuit ahead of next month's Belgian Grand Prix. Spa is not one of the officially designated F1 test tracks, and neither Michelin nor Bridgestone would get a chance to run there under normal circumstances.

1m52.00s 105 laps
1m53.60s 65 laps